Edward Price

Characterization of Instructor and Student Use of Ubiquitous Presenter, a Presentation System Enabling Spontaneity and Digital Archiving

Ubiquitous Presenter (UP) is a digital presentation system that allows an instructor with a Tablet PC to spontaneously modify prepared slides, while automatically archiving the inked slides on the web. For two introductory physics classes, we examine the types of slides instructors prepare and the ways in which they add ink to the slides. Modes of usage include: using ink to explicitly link multiple representations; making prepared figures dynamic by animating them with ink; and preparing slides with sparse text or figures, then adding extensive annotations during class. In addition, through an analysis of surveys and of web server logs, we examine student reaction to the system, as well as how often and in what ways students’ utilize archived material. In general, students find the system valuable and frequently review the presentations online.

Complex interactions between formative assessment, technology, and classroom practices

Interactive engagement (IE) methods provide instructors with evidence of student thinking that can guide instructional decisions across a range of timescales: facilitating an activity, determining the flow of activities, or modifying the curriculum. Thus, from the instructors perspective, IE activities can function as formative assessments. As a practical matter, the ability to utilize this potential depends on how the activities are implemented. This paper describes different tools for small group problem solving, including whiteboards, Tablet PCs, digital cameras, and photo-sharing websites. These tools provide the instructor with varying levels of access to student work during and after class, and therefore provide a range of support for formative assessment. Furthermore, the tools differ in physical size, ease of use, and the roles for students and instructor. These differences lead to complex, often surprising interactions with classroom practices.

Graphical representations of vector functions in upper-division E&M

In upper division electricity and magnetism, the manipulation and interpretation of vector functions is pervasive and a significant challenge to students. At CSU San Marcos, using in-class activities adapted from the Oregon State University Paradigms in Physics Curriculum, students difficulties with vector functions become evident in two types of in-class activities: sketching vector functions and relating vector and scalar functions (e.g., electric field and electric potential). For many students, the cause of these difficulties is a failure to fully distinguish between the components of a vector function and its coordinate variables. To address this difficulty, we implement an additional inclass activity requiring students to translate between graphical and algebraic representations of vector functions. We present our experience with these issues, how to address them, and how in-class activities can provide evidence of student thinking that facilitates curricular refinement.

Don't Erase that Whiteboard! Archiving Student Work on a Photo-Sharing Website

Students in physics courses often use whiteboards to brainstorm, solve problems, and present results to the rest of the class, particularly in courses involving collaborative small group work and whole class discussions. The whiteboards contain a valuable record of students collaborative work. Once a whiteboard is erased, however, its contents are lost and no longer accessible to students, instructors, or researchers and curriculum developers. We solve this problem using wireless-enabled digital cameras to create an archive of students work on the photo-sharing website Flickr.com. This provides a persistent record of class activities that our students use frequently and find valuable. In this paper, we describe how this works in class and how students use the photos.

Ubiquitous Presenter: A Tablet PC-Based System to Support Instructors and Students.

Digital lecturing systems (computer and projector, often with PowerPoint) offer physics instructors the ability to incorporate graphics and the power to share and reuse materials. But these systems do a poor job of supporting interaction in the classroom. For instance, with digital presentation systems, instructors have limited ability to spontaneously respond to student questions. This limitation is especially acute during classroom activities such as problem solving, Peer Instruction,1 and Interactive Lecture Demonstrations (ILDs).2 A Tablet PC, a laptop computer with a stylus that can be used to “write” on the screen, provides a way for instructors to add digital ink spontaneously to a presentation in progress. The Tablet PC can be a powerful tool for teaching,3,4 especially when combined with software systems specifically designed to leverage digital ink for pedagogical uses. Ubiquitous Presenter (UP) is one such freely available system.5 Developed at the University of California, San Diego, and based...

The Influence of Tablet PCs on Students’ Use of Multiple Representations in Lab Reports

This study examined how different tools influenced students’ use of representations in the Physics laboratory. In one section of a lab course, every student had a Tablet PC that served as a digital‐ink based lab notebook. Students could seamlessly create hand‐drawn graphics and equations, and write lab reports on the same computer used for data acquisition, simulation, and analysis. In another lab section, students used traditional printed lab guides, kept paper notebooks, and then wrote lab reports on regular laptops. Analysis of the lab reports showed differences between the sections’ use of multiple representations, including an increased use of diagrams and equations by the Tablet users.

Preparing physics graduate students to be educators

We discuss two efforts that support the preparation of graduate students for their roles as professional physicists, particularly in the areas of teaching and education research. The Preparing Future Physicists program and the Teaching and Learning Physics course are mutually supportive, address broader graduate roles, and support the development of physics education research. Students’ participation in these activities increases their mastery of physics, develops their interest in education and teaching, and engages them in research projects in physics education. We describe these efforts and identify critical features of their successes.

Characterizing the Epistemologicai Development of Physics Majors

Differences between novice and expert physics students have frequently been reported, yet students’ development through intermediate stages has seldom been described. In this study, we characterize undergraduate physics majors’ epistemological sophistication at various levels of degree progress. A cross‐section of physics majors was surveyed with the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey. Beginning physics majors are significantly more expert‐like than non‐physics majors in introductory physics courses; furthermore, this high level of sophistication is constant over the first three years of the physics degree program, with increases at the senior and graduate levels. Based on longitudinal data on a subset of students, we observe negligible average shift in students’ responses over periods of up to two years. We discuss implications for how and why physics students’ epistemological sophistication develops, including a possible connection between CLASS survey response and self‐identification as a...

Arrows as anchors: Conceptual blending and student use of electric field vector arrows

We use the theory of conceptual blending with material anchors to describe how people make meaning of the vector arrows representation of electric fields. We describe this representation as a conceptual blend of a spatial (coordinate) input space and an electric-field-as-arrows space (which itself is a blend of electric field concept with arrows). This representation possesses material features including the use of spatial extent (e.g., distance on paper) to represent the coordinate space and to represent the magnitude of electric field vectors. As a result, this representation supports a geometric interpretation of the electric field, breaking the field into components, and the addition of two fields at a point. The material features also emphasize the spatial relationships between the source(s) and points where the field is represented. However, the material features also necessitate sampling and do not generally support the rapid superposition of two fields at all points. We illustrate this analysis with examples from clinical problem-solving interviews with upper-division physics majors, and interpret students errors in using this representation as resulting from conflict between the input spaces in the blend.

Development and evaluation of large‐enrollment, active‐learning physical science curriculum

We report on the initial field tests of Learning Physical Science (LEPS), a new curriculum adapted from Physical Science and Everyday Thinking (PSET). PSET is an inquiry‐based, hands‐on, physical science curriculum that includes an explicit focus on nature of science and nature of learning. PSET was developed for small enrollment discussion/lab settings. The Learning Physical Science (LEPS) curriculum maintains the same research‐based learning principles as PSET but is suitable for classes taught in lecture format. LEPS has been field tested by eight instructors at different universities. In this paper, we describe the adaptation process, the resulting LEPS curriculum, and present student learning outcomes for LEPS and PSET.