AAPT Workshops

AAPT Workshops

Boston University April 1, 2006

All the workshops will be held in the Physics Building (Metcalf Center for Science, abbreviated SCI at BU) at 590 Commonwealth Ave. From the Photonics building head east along Cummington Street. 590 Comm. Ave. is the building at the far end of Cummington from Photonics.

The AAPT workshops on Saturday afternoon will be split into two parallel sessions, one from 1:30-3:30 pm and the other from 3:30-5:30 pm. The fee for each workshop is $10 unless otherwise noted. Registration for the Saturday workshops will be done on-site on a first-come, first-served basis. However, you can reserve a seat in the workshop(s) of your choice by sending an e-mail to Andrew Duffy, duffy@buphy.bu.edu. Please put "Workshop Reservation" as the Subject, and then include your name and the number(s) of the workshop(s) you would like to attend.

Workshop 1A 1:30-3:30 pm Location: SCI B-9 Paul Hickman RTOP	Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP): Providing Feedback to Improve K-20 Science Instruction Framing Questions How do we break the cycle of teaching as we were taught? Does reformed teaching foster greater student understanding? Can we really quantify science teachers’ practice? Will formative feedback accelerate professional growth and increase teacher retention?
Workshop 1B 1:30-2:30 pm Location: SCI B-15 Judy Donnelly Three Rivers Community College Norwich, CT Photon2	Optics Magic Cost: $5 This one-hour workshop includes optics demonstrations from the Photon2 project as well as some free giveaways. See glass disappear, colors appear, and a "solid" wall vanish before your eyes. I will present (and explain!) magical demonstrations in light and vision that have been collected by the PHOTON2 team. Most require only inexpensive materials, and complete instructions will be provided. The PHOTON2 professional development team has been working with creative middle school, high school and college teachers nationwide since 2000.
Workshop 1C 1:30-3:30 pm Location: SCI B-23 Dick Feren Lou Turner	The CASTLE Curriculum on Electricity and Magnetism, part I Cost: $15 This workshop is for anyone interested in a new way to investigate the causal nature of electric, magnetic, and electromagnetic fields. Familiarity with the CASTLE core curriculum is not required. MOTOR AND GENERATOR EFFECTS in a hand-cranked generator are traced to the field of permanent magnets acting on moving charge in wires. The common phenomenon of “Bread-Mixer Burnout” will be investigated in light of the associated motor/generator effects. VECTOR ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION that leaves a coil as well as the stationary magnetic field that remains inside the coil will be investigated by using a current-bearing coil and bicolor LED. A coaxial secondary coil and portable radio detect the electric field moving outward. The ideas of near-field and far-field will be investigated and applied to both transformers and transmitters. Participants will receive the latest version of the curriculum for motors, generators, and electromagnetic fields. Dick will also have some equipment available for sale to participants: nested-coil transformers (PASCO #SE-8653, $44.00) and 6.5 V output transformers (step-down from 120 V, STANCOR #P-6134, $11.00)
Workshop 1D 1:30-3:30 pm Location: SCI 134 Dick Cooper Gettysburg College Gettysburg, PA 17325 dcooper@gettysburg.edu clea@gettysburg.edu Project CLEA	Project CLEA: Astronomy Laboratory Exercises for non science majors, part I Note that participants may attend the first two hours only, the second two hours only, or stay for all four hours. There will be no duplication of the exercises gone over in the first half of the workshop with those covered in the second half. Though the value of hands-on learning has long been recognized by educators, it is difficult to design laboratories in astronomy classes that present realistic astrophysical techniques to undergraduate students. Unlike most other sciences, astronomy is largely observational, not experimental, and making useful observations involves expensive equipment over time scales inconvenient for pedagogy. In recent years, however, astronomy has gone almost completely digital, and the advent of large on-line data bases and fast personal computers has made it possible to realistically simulate the experience of research astrophysics in the laboratory. Since 1992, Project CLEA (Contemporary Laboratory Experiences in Astronomy) has been developing such computer-based exercises aimed primarily at the introductory astronomy laboratory. These exercises simulate important techniques of astronomical research using digital data and Windows-based software. Each of the 12 exercises developed to date consists of software, technical guides for teachers, and student manuals for the exercises. CLEA software is used at many institutions in all 50 States and over 60 countries world-wide, in a variety of settings from middle school to upper-class college astronomy classes. We will describe and demonstrate some of the NEW CLEA materials and talk about our design philosophy. All participants will receive a CD with all the CLEA software and documentation. Hopefully, it will be of value to be used in your curriculum. The latest and most exciting CLEA exercises released are the: The Period of Rotation Of the Sun, The Transits of Venus and Mercury, and Dying Stars and the Birth of the Elements. Plans for future development will be presented. Project CLEA is supported by grants from Gettysburg College and the National Science Foundation. We will provide sample student manuals and two CDs for all participants with all the astronomy labs included. We also provide site a license, and there are no fees to use the software for educational purposes (HS,TYC,FYC).
Workshop 1E 1:30-3:30 pm Location: SCI 136 Jonathan Mitschele Saint Joseph's College Standish, Maine 04084 jmitsche@sjcme.edu	Providing the Conceptual Foundation for Understanding Quantum Physics A conceptual understanding of quantum mechanical principles is fundamental to modern physics, but scant attention has been paid to making the subject accessible to students. Given (1) that most students lack the relevant physics background, and (2) that the introduction to quantum mechanics in standard textbooks is usually quite abstract, it is not surprising that the conceptual foundations of the subject remain a mystery to virtually all students passing through quantum mechanics courses. One can begin to demystify the subject with a set of carefully chosen demonstrations and simple experiments that explore fundamental aspects of waves, oscillating systems, and light: wavelength, frequency, wave velocity, diffraction, interference, nodes and antinodes, resonance, and the photoelectric effect. In this workshop you will have an opportunity to work with a group of such experiments and demonstrations that can easily be used in the classroom. We will also introduce you to an extensive video collection of such demonstrations and experiments that the Institute for Chemical Education at the University of Wisconsin - Madison is currently developing that will be distributed as one in the Chemistry Comes Alive! CD series (see the web site)
Workshop 1F 1:30-3:30 pm Location: SCI B-25 Robert Tinker Concord Consortium	Any Probe, Any Computer, Anywhere Probeware is one of the best applications of technology to physics teaching. One major barrier to probe use is the difficulty of matching software, interface electronics, and computers. This workshop will demonstrate some exciting new software that is free, tested, standards-based, and highly interactive. It pulls together various virtues of a computer-based lab, including: embedded real-time data collection via automatic connection to probes; compatibility with several different probe manufacturers; cross-platform compatibility (MacOS, Windows, Linux); embedded instructions and assessment; the ability to write and share multimedia reports of investigations; automatically generated teacher reports; simple authoring capabilities. In the workshop you will try out existing activities and create one of your own. The authoring software is in active development. Participants will have the opportunity to influence its future development. Come with your favorite ideas for using force and motion probes!
Workshop 2A 3:30-5:30 pm Location: SCI 136 Elisha Huggins Dartmouth College Hanover, NH 03755 Physics 2000	Teaching Relativity in Week One Cost: Free. For nearly a century we have lived with an introductory physics curriculum that divides physics into classical and modern parts, and teaches only the classical part to the majority of students. The Physics2000 workshop demonstrates how to easily overcome this divide by starting with special relativity in the first week, and fitting in 20th century topics as you go along. As examples, we will discuss introducing magnetism from Coulomb's law and the Lorentz contraction, and teach the time-energy form of the uncertainty principle using the pulse Fourier Transform capability of MacScope II. Free Physics2000 CD and printed texts for those who attend the workshop.
Workshop 2B 3:30-5:30 pm Location: SCI B-11 J. Russell Harkay Keene State College Keene, NH Phenomenal Physics	Phenomenal Physics-A Guided Inquiry Curriculum for Pre-College Education, Teacher Preparation, and Conceptual Physics Instruction at the College Level Cost: Free. The word inquiry has become a buzzword of late, often used by equipment vendors as a promotional tool. As a result, we might as what IS guided inquiry and what is its place in the classroom? How does it differ from laboratory instruction? Are limitations imposed by this methodology and how might we minimize those? Using exercises gleaned from a textbook authored by the presenter originally inspired by work performed under NSF grant Project INSPIRE, participants explore a hands-on method of instruction that can lead to remarkable levels of retention and, most importantly, interest in the subject and total lack of apprehension. The curriculum, with only minor modifications in application, can be used effectively by elementary-middle school teachers, high school teachers offering conceptual physics courses, and at the college level in the areas of teacher preparation and conceptual “General Education” courses. One of the beauties of the approach is its minimal cost and use of readily available materials. The curriculum is not without a sense of humor, enhancing its acceptance by even the most “physics phobic” students. Some “giveaways”.
Workshop 2C 3:30-5:30 pm Location: SCI B-23 Dick Feren Lou Turner	The CASTLE Curriculum on Electricity and Magnetism, part II See the description under Workshop 1C above
Workshop 2D 3:30-5:30 pm Location: SCI 134 Dick Cooper Gettysburg College Gettysburg, PA 17325 dcooper@gettysburg.edu clea@gettysburg.edu Project CLEA	Project CLEA: Astronomy Laboratory Exercises for non science majors, part II See the description under Workshop 1D above. Note that participants may attend the first two hours only, the second two hours only, or stay for all four hours. There will be no duplication of the exercises gone over in the first half of the workshop with those covered in the second half.
Workshop 2E 3:30-5:30 pm Location: SCI B-25 Robert Tinker and the Molecular Workbench Team Concord Consortium	Teach for Conceptual Understanding of Atomic Scale Phenomena Phase change, chemical reactions, crystals, gas laws, energy conservation, interactions with light, and much more all come alive with interactive Molecular Workbench models based on a free, NSF-funded molecular dynamics system. Students can explore how these phenomena depend on the properties of atoms and their interactions. All models are embedded in tested learning activities with online assessment and portfolios. You can easily edit the activities and author your own. The core software engine is a 2D molecular dynamics system solver that uses van der Waals forces and Newton's Law to propagate up to 300 atoms. Gravity, Coulomb forces, and fields can be added. Energy-conserving chemical bonds have been implemented to introduce chemistry, chemical energy, equilibriums, and enthalpy. The systems also includes interactions with photons and excited states to allow students to explore the atomic origin of color, fluorescence, and spectra. Finally, the system supports larger particles that allow students to explore nano-scale phenomena like liquid crystals, bio-molecules, and self-assembly. See http://mw.concord.org/modeler/index.html These capabilities are embedded in an authoring system that allows faculty and teachers to create interactive student activities with multi-media, controlled options, questions, annotated snapshots, and reports. Several hundred such activities are listed in a database at http://molo.concord.org. All the current activities are free and the software is all open source. The Molecular Workbench approach is important to science education reform because it suggests a way of using the computational power of modern computers to circumvent the difficulties in understanding the formalism of statistical mechanics and thermodynamics by exploring models. The atomic view that this approach fosters is just what is needed to provide the intellectual underpinning for interdisciplinary approaches to science and to the "physics first" movement in secondary science. It is firmly endorsed by Leon Lederman and others promulgating "physics first".