Speaker
Description
First year physics courses serve an important function in many physics departments. In this presentation, I will discuss my experience teaching an introductory course at Queen's University in Canada and how I have integrated many elements from Physics Education Research and beyond. At the most basic level, students take the course to decide if they will major into physics. I have found that how we teach the course has a large impact on the diversity of students that join our program, and subsequently our field. It is thus of critical importance that we get it right.
I will discuss how, through teaching such a course, we have an opportunity to shape how students view themselves and develop their identity as physicists. I will try to provide some recommendations based on my experience such as creating a sense of community among students so that students feel part of the physics community as they confront challenging open-ended physics problems. I will also present some of the open access resources that we have created, such as a textbook that we have developed with students, and discuss how we integrate those resources. Finally, I will discuss how we have integrated a series of laboratory experiments that use very little equipment so that students can focus on developing strong skills as experimentalists.
| Abstract Category | Physics Education |
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