Physics 11A: Introductory General Physics, Mechanics

Reflection on Instructional Change:

I had been struggling for weeks getting students engaged in breakout rooms. I was running a format that I had used successfully in person. Students work on a set of problems individually, then come together to work on the same problems in a small team, then merge into a larger group to discuss their progress, including points of confusions, how they arrived at answers, and the answers, and then finally come back together as a class to report out on the group discussions. I have the students select roles for their small team (leader, notetaker, or speaker) and these seemed to go well. However, observing group breakout rooms, students just didn't talk, at least not online! After learning about jigsaw discussions in the ACUE course, I moved to that format. I assigned a specific question to each breakout room. This resulted in much more lively discussions and a far better class round.

I continued using the breakout jigsaw discussions for the remainder of the fall semester. Students strongly preferred that format and enjoyed hearing the different questions presented in the final whole class discussion. Because a majority of the students had not yet discussed all the questions the follow up online conversations were also more comprehensive. I decided to use the jigsaw discussions again in the spring and I found that the format was a bit tricky to introduce to the class. I selected this "jigsaw discussion introduction" for observation and now plan to introduce the elements of the jigsaw discussion more gradually to ease the students into the complex format.

Zoom recording screenshot of my description of the 4 round jigsaw discussion format.

The 4 rounds of the class discussion. First, students answer all questions individually, second, teams discuss and again answer all questions, third, groups discuss one of the questions, finally, the peer leader summarizes the group round.

An example collaboration document highlighting one problem and the 4 key aspects that all peer leaders much address in the class round. An example final report from a Chapter Peer Leader. These are collaboration documents and made available to the entire class.

Badge 5

Badge 6 These activities were learned in modules 5 and 6.

Practice and Reflect on: Planning and Facilitating Discussions

Discussions ACUE Morris.docx (reflection guide uploaded here)

Faculty Biography

I started as a physics student at Sac State in 2002. I always loved science growing up, but I chose physics in particular because I thought they had the friendliest department. I grew to love physics while hiking up snow covered mountains with my professors, who would constantly ask questions like, “why do the holes from your snowshoeing poles look blue?” I decided to continue my study of physics, moving to Boston where I completed my PhD in Applied Physics at Harvard University. Now I am back at Sac State where I teach and conduct research in soft matter physics and biophysics. When I am not busy with physics, one of my favorite things to do (pre-pandemic) is curling. Of course, I am usually thinking about physics while curling!

This work was supported by the Developing Hispanic Serving Institution Project INSPIRE