Atlantic Physics Teaching Day
MORNING
9:00 – 10:00: Constructivism, Misconceptions and the Benefits of Active Learning
Magdalen Normandeau, University of New Brunswick
If students walked into our classes as blank slates, our jobs would be so much easier: a clear lecture would be all that is needed to transfer knowledge from our brains to our students’ brains. Sadly, it’s not that easy: students come in with a variety of conceptual constructs already in place, some of which can hinder development of new understanding. Happily, however, much of the early work in Physics Education Research (PER) focused on identifying and cataloguing misconceptions, followed by the development and evaluation of instructional strategies to help students overcome misconceptions. These strategies are constructivist in nature and fall under the umbrella of active learning. In this session, I’ll review some of the key findings of PER related to conceptual change.
11:45-12:00: GIFT - Why Measure?
Philip Backman, University of New Brunswick
10:00-10:15: GIFT - Hot stuff – infrared thermometers and thermal imaging in the classroom
David Fleming, Mount Allison University
10:30-10:45: GIFT - Role-Playing Activities in Introductory Science Classes
Catherine Lovekin, Mount Allison University
10:45-11:45: Experiential Physics in 1st Year - Recent Developments at Mount Allison
David Fleming, Mohammad Ahmady, Ralf Brüning, Bob Hawkes, and Cathy Pettipas, Mount Allison University
The introductory physics sequence at Mount Allison has been taught in an experiential or workshop mode since the year 2000. In this session we will review recent developments in our first year experiential physics program. Hands-on demonstrations will also be provided from our 1st year experiential physics courses: General Physics I, General Physics II, and the recently introduced Physics for the Life Sciences.
3:15-3:45: Wrapup Discussion: How Do We Put it All Together?
Moderators: Robert Hawkes, Magdalen Normandeau, Geoffrey Lee-Dadswell
2:15-3:15: Peering Into Peer Instruction
Ben Newling, University of New Brunswick
The peer instructions paradigm centres around question-motivated discussions between students in the physics classroom. There are all sort of good reasons for trying this kind of approach: improved student engagement, improved understanding, improved retention, better weather and world peace to name a few. In this workshop we will try some implementation tools (from the retro to an example or two of the latest technowizardry) and discuss some tricks to try and abysses to avoid.
2:00-2:15: GIFT - iCircuit
Robert Hawkes, Mount Allison University
1:00-2:00: Reflective Reading Journals – Powerful, Effective, not so Airy-fairy as You Might Think
Geoffrey Lee-Dadswell, Cape Breton University
How do we get students to read? This perennial problem becomes more acute in active teaching since during classroom time students practice using their new knowledge rather than having the knowledge “delivered” to them. It is important to hold students accountable for doing this preparation; otherwise they are likely to come to class unprepared. An approach that can be borrowed from the humanities is to have students write Reflective Writing Journals. This idea may seem “too soft” for physics courses. But it has been used successfully and has many advantages over more traditional reading quizzes. During this session you will get a students-eye view of the process and we will look at how to adopt this practice without making your marking load go through the roof.