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Physics 107: Conceptual Physics and Scientific Inquiry

Reflection on Instructional Change:

Physics 107 is a capstone class for future elementary school teachers and it needed to be redesigned anyway in order for the content to be aligned with the New Generation Science Standards (NGSS). This is a very important class because if it fails to get students excited and confident about the topics, our children will continue to miss out on science.

I used backwards design to plan the class and am now reaping the benefits of having done so. Having clear student learning outcomes at each step helps me stay focused. The class is being taught synchronously to build a sense of community. I believe that reflection is an important tool for teaching and learning so I am including lots of opportunities for that (rightmost figure below). I try to keep students engaged in our 2.5 hour class meetings by making constant usage of group work and assigning roles to make sure all participate. I also call on individual students to answer questions and they are pretty much always ready to speak. This indicates to me that they are engaged and feel safe.

The switch to online teaching pushed me to experiment with eliminating exams and grading daily assignments, homework, labs, and a final course project instead. I haven’t made up my mind yet on whether this is a good model for assessment or not.

The past grade distribution for Physics 107 classes (leftmost figure below) concerns me because all As and Bs indicates to me that the class isn’t challenging enough - the students can be asked to do (and learn!) more. Although the URM gap in the grade distribution is smaller than typical for physics classes, I am afraid it is just really reflecting the narrow grade distribution.

Equity gap in Phys 107. Non-URM students are graded on average 0.26 GPA points higher than URM.

Phet Energy Forms and Changes is used to teach the concepts of Temperature, Thermal Energy, and Heat.

I require students to constantly reflect on the content. This is usually done first individually and then in groups.

Post Side Car - Syllabus and Schedule

Pre Side Car - Syllabus and Schedule

Faculty Biography

My name is Vera Margoniner and I am a professor at the Physics and Astronomy department. I am passionate about teaching and learning and believe that I am successful only when my students start to make sense of the content and start to make connections between what I am teaching and the world around us. This kind of deep learning requires serious work from both the students and myself but I believe it is much more impactful.

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation NSF Hispanic Serving Institution Award 1832335. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.