The following workshops will be offered in parallel during the SACS-AAPT Fall 2010 Meeting on Saturday, October 23, 2010 between 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. (We will give away experimental kits to our participants)
Waves
Organizer/Moderator: Kael Martin (Porter-Gaud School, Charleston) and Dr. Ana Oprisan (College of Charleston)
Location: Rita Hollings Science Center, room 108
Waves abound in our lives and most of us are familiar with wave phenomena. We all have observed waves on the surface of water, heard sound waves and seen light (electromagnetic waves) to name few. We will investigate some of the common characteristic of waves; standing waves, reflection, refraction, interference and diffraction. We will present a series of hands-on activities related to waves that can be performed at high school level or even at middle school and elementary school level by reducing or eliminating some of the math and concentrating more on the concepts. At the end of this workshop we will give away experimental kits to our participants
Physics Labs with Flavor
Organizer/Moderator: Dr. Mikhail M. Agrest (College of Charleston)
Location: Rita Hollings Science Center, room 106
The principle of recurrent studies as a way to bring flavor into Introductory Physics labs was discussed earlier 1,2 Participants will get some hands-on experience of Recurrent Studies and feel excitement due to the flavor it brings into the introductory Physics Labs. You will perform forward study of a phenomenon and calculate unknown parameters based on your own measurements and assumptions. After discussion you will set up the backward study. The purpose of it is to evaluate how accurate was your result in the direct study. Here the parameter of interest in forward study stays unchanged, but others will change. Based on your measurements of some of them and the result of the forward study, you have to predict one (or more) parameters. Then you will perform the backward experiment to measure the value of the predicted parameter and calculate the percent error for your prediction. We expect that you will experience excitement (as students have) and you will be motivated to try the recurrent studies method for innovation of your teaching.
1. M.M. Agrest, "Physics labs with flavor," Phys. Teach. 47, 297 (May 2009)
2. M.M. Agrest, "Physics labs with flavor II," Phys. Teach. (in print for 2011)
Class Response Systems can Make your Lectures Interactive
Organizer/Moderator: Drs. Linda R. Jones and Michael L. Larsen (College of Charleston)
Location: Rita Hollings Science Center, room 125
Students learn best when their minds are engaged in the classroom. Students generally expect lectures in physics class but it is all too easy to deliver a well prepared lecture and still fail to engage the students. Class response systems, or clickers, offer a convenient method of student engagement in the classroom. Whether your teaching style includes hands-on projects, PowerPoint slides or blackboard lectures, clickers can enhance your students' learning and provide a convenient tool for on-the-fly, mid-lesson assessment. In this workshop, we will present various ways in which clickers can be used in the classroom including recording attendance, review of previous material, check of understanding and opinion polls. We will discuss our experience with clickers including anonymous vs. assigned responses and numeric vs. conceptual questions. Following the introduction, participants will answer several sample questions with alphanumeric SMART Senteo clickers as well as iClickers. Participants will then work in small groups to develop clicker questions that could transform a traditional set of lecture notes into a more interactive experience. Each group will present some clicker questions to the group and we will wrap up the workshop with a question and answer period.
PASE: Real-time graphing and data analysis of motion for K-12 science classrooms
Organizer/Moderator: Susan Engelhardt (S.C. Governor's School for Science and Mathematics)
Location: Rita Hollings Science Center, room 126
The Portable Advance Science Exploration (PASE) program promotes advanced scientific exploration through the use of technology and is an outreach program sponsored by the South Carolina Governor's School for Science and Mathematics (GSSM). PASE provides professional development for SC middle and high school teachers in the physical and biological sciences and loans the lab equipment to those teachers so they can conduct these labs within their own classrooms. Learn about the PASE program with a quick introduction to the equipment and see how over 160 teachers have engaged over 1,000 students in technology based scientific discoveries integrated with the SC science standards.
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Disclaimer: All presentations at SACS-AAPT Fall 2010 reflect the views of the individual speakers and do not represent those of the AAPT or any of its supporters.