Conveners
Room 2: Parallel 1
- Sithy Maharoof
- David Morgan (Richard Bland College)
Room 2: Parallel 2
- Jency Sundararajan (University of Virginia)
- Jason Sterlace (James Madison University)
Room 2: Parallel 3
- James Freericks (Georgetown University)
- Muge Karagoz
Integrating secondary physics coursework with higher education expectations through Dual Enrollment (DE) models introduces distinct pedagogical and operational challenges. This presentation examines the alignment of a high school Honors Physics curriculum with Hagerstown Community College’s (HCC) PHS 103 course, emphasizing the significant transition required when moving from a traditional...
The Quantum Collaborative Research Corps (QCoR) is a research organization based at the University of Maryland College Park (UMD-CP) and embedded within the Laboratory of Physical Sciences Qubit Collaboratory (LQC). In addition to advancing quantum information science and technology towards quantum computing, developing the next generation quantum workforce through education and public...
I will briefly review a history and structure of PhysicsFest - the annual WM Physics department open house, and will share some of the crowd favorite activities and events. Since the event is mostly organized by undergraduate students, I will share my thoughts on why participating in outreach provides many benefits for student organizers and volunteers.
I recently participated in the Congressional Visits Day (CVD) program co-sponsored by the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and the American Astronomical Society (AAS), stepping out of the classroom to advocate directly on Capitol Hill. In this presentation, I will share key takeaways regarding the major issues facing physics and astronomy research and education at the federal...
This year, programming changed dramatically. I will share my experiences and outlook on teaching computational physics at this amazing moment in history. I am currently teaching both a sophomore-level course "Computational Methods for Physics and Engineering" and a senior-level "Advanced Computational Physics"; and I will talk about how AI use relates to both of these courses.
For several years I have used Descartes's and Huygens's pre-Newtonian collision rules as writing-and-reasoning exercises in introductory physics, asking students two questions: does the rule seem right, and can you show whether it agrees with momentum conservation? While searching for the full-text of Huygens's primary source "Concerning the motion of colliding bodies", I came across a...
A common observation of physics faculty and professionals hiring physics graduates is that undergraduate students have deficient physics-specific writing skills. Underlying issues include the fact that students are not often exposed to authentic writing experiences as part of their curriculum, and physics faculty may not feel qualified to teach writing. Scholarship focused on writing transfer,...
Spin is typically the first encounter students have with intrinsically quantum degrees of freedom, yet its mathematical formalism is often postulated in an abstract manner that removes it from its experimental roots. We present a sophomore-level instructional approach in which the spin-1/2 formalism is developed directly from experimentally motivated phenomena. Beginning with Stern–Gerlach...
Quantum Mechanics is the upper-level undergraduate course that is often the most challenging in the core curriculum for physics majors. While most courses follow the more traditional track of starting with Schrödinger’s Equation and wave functions in position space, a recent trend favors an alternate approach that instead exposes students to simple spin-½ systems at the beginning. In the...
How can we use our physics classrooms to address scientific misinformation? A renewed vision of scientific literacy emphasizes how citizens interact with scientific knowledge, institutions, and expertise. The breadth of this challenge for educators is daunting. This talk will address what students and instructors need to learn to navigate scientific information and expertise as competent...
Virtual Science Teachers creates free, ready-to-use digital resources that help learners explore phenomena, analyze data, and support explanations with evidence. This fast-paced presentation will demonstrate a physics-focused gradual graph reveal and highlight VST Graph Skill Builders, simulations, graphing tools, interactives, and bell ringers. Attendees will learn about a free and curated...
In what has been called the second quantum revolution, quantum information science and technology (QIST) is moving out of the labs and into commercial space. Investments and efforts of government, industry, and higher education have accelerated. Economic development reports more than 2 job openings for every qualified individual. As quantum technology emerges, who has access to the educational...
