Students with a strong science identity have a higher likelihood of choosing a science career and are more likely to demonstrate persistence in STEM courses and careers. Preliminary findings of an ongoing qualitative survey analysis of 120 undergraduate women in Physics will be presented. The following research questions are being investigated:
- What are undergraduate women’s conceptions...
This study explores how International Graduate Teaching Assistants (IGTAs) adjust to teaching roles in the U.S., focusing on how their cultural backgrounds influence their experiences and classroom interactions. Using Hofstede’s cultural dimensions as a framework (Hofstede, G. 2011), we examine how power distance, individualism versus collectivism, and motivation towards achievement in their...
As quantum information science becomes a more prominent topic, high schools and colleges are thinking about how to incorporate these ideas into existing classes and new courses. We have been working with teachers to develop quantum activities and lessons for high school computer science, chemistry, and physics classes as well as to develop a new conceptual (no pre-requisites) university...
A challenge for high school teachers pursuing the National Board Certification is the ability to demonstrate differentiation in the classroom. One example of such differentiation is implementing multiple formative or summative assessments adequate for the critical thinking level of the students for an 11th grade Honors Physics class. Yet designing a curriculum for each individual student...
Dance obviously involves body control and biomechanics, lending itself to the use of physics principles in its execution. But as a teacher of both physics and dance, I find that physics and astronomy instruction also benefits from analogies to dance movements and figures. From simple teaching tools like the "sun and moon dance" to the use of folk dance analogies in the teaching of circuits and...
I will present an overview of an interactive electronic textbook I have developed on Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity. Based on an original PDF text by my late colleague Prof. Rexford Adelberger, I have expanded his content into a 14-chapter Jupyter Book that walks the reader through four vectors, Lorentz Transformations, and spacetime diagrams, all the way through relativistic...
Students who complete a high school physics course may be under the impression that physics somehow “stopped” in the late 19th or early 20th century. Of course this idea could not be further from the truth, as physicists today continue to work on addressing an ever-growing list of unsolved questions: Where has all the antimatter gone? What is dark matter? What is dark energy? Physicists from...
QuarkNet is more than an amazing professional development opportunity for teachers! QuarkNet also provides the Data Portfolio, a set of teacher curated and tested particle physics lessons intended for use at the high school level. Talk will feature examples of implementation in a real classroom, as well as discussion of QuarkNet's eLabs and Masterclasses, with some focus on the Virginia Tech Center.
The Virginia QuarkNet Center hosts an annual particle physics masterclass for students and several teacher workshops each year primarily including teachers in the Hampton Roads and Richmond area. Some participating teachers also attend workshops at CERN and Fermilab. We will share details of some activites from recent Viriginia QuarkNet Center events.
