Related papers: Operationalizing the AAPT Learning Goals for the L…
The a priori analysis (APA) is discussed as a tool to assess the reliability of grades in standard curricular courses. This unusual, but striking application is presented when teaching the section on data treatment of a Laboratory Course to…
In this article we argue how the use of structured laboratory guides are pedagogically inadequate for meaningful learning. Subsequently, an approach to laboratory activities in accordance with scientific work and the constructivist vision…
Students who serve as Learning Assistants (LAs) and have the opportunity to teach the content they are learning, while also studying effective teaching pedagogy, have demonstrated achievement gains in advanced content courses and positive…
We have developed a set of laboratories and hands on activities to accompany a new two-semester interdisciplinary physics course that has been successfully developed and tested in two small test classes of students at the University of…
Scientific laboratories are among the most challenging course components to integrate into online instruction. Available technology restricts the design and nature of experiments and it can be hard to replicate the collaborative lab…
In introductory physics laboratory instruction, students often expect to confirm or demonstrate textbook physics concepts (Wilcox & Lewandowski, 2017; Hu & Zwickl, 2017; Hu & Zwickl, 2018). This expectation is largely undesirable: labs that…
Since 2006, the Pigelleto's Summer School of Physics is an important appointment for orienting students toward physics. It is organized as a full immersion school on actual topics in physics or in fields rarely pursued in high school, i.e.…
While reinforcement learning provides an appealing formalism for learning individual skills, a general-purpose robotic system must be able to master an extensive repertoire of behaviors. Instead of learning a large collection of skills…
This paper introduces a novel approach to create a high-resolution "map" for physics learning: an "atomic" learning objectives (LOs) system designed to capture detailed cognitive processes and concepts required for problem solving in a…
AI-powered educational technologies have demonstrated measurable benefits for learners, but their design and evaluation have largely centered on K-12 contexts. As a result, many AI-supported learning systems remain poorly aligned with the…
Robots capable of performing manipulation tasks in a broad range of missions in unstructured environments can develop numerous applications to impact and enhance human life. Existing work in robot learning has shown success in applying…
Students' learning orientation, as applied towards learning problem solving, may be differentiated into learning a problem solving framework for its own sake, learning for the sake of doing well in the course, and non-goal-related…
Achievement goals are frequently used to support behavior change. However, they are often not specifically designed for this purpose nor account for the degree to which a user is already intending to perform the target behavior. In this…
An active learning (AL) algorithm seeks to construct an effective classifier with a minimal number of labeled examples in a bootstrapping manner. While standard AL heuristics, such as selecting those points for annotation for which a…
A variety of activities are commonly used in college physics courses including lab, tutorials, and studio curricula. Instructors must choose among using research-based activities, designing their own activities or modifying existing…
Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) are key partners in the education of undergraduates. Given the potentially large impact GTAs can have on undergraduate student learning, it is important to provide them with appropriate preparation for…
The reform of the upper secondary school in Italy has recently introduced physics in the curricula of professional schools, in realities where it was previously absent. Many teachers, often with a temporary position, are obliged to teaching…
Active learning (AL) is a learning paradigm where an active learner has to train a model (e.g., a classifier) which is in principal trained in a supervised way, but in AL it has to be done by means of a data set with initially unlabeled…
Active Learning (AL) methods seek to improve classifier performance when labels are expensive or scarce. We consider two central questions: Where does AL work? How much does it help? To address these questions, a comprehensive experimental…
Professional development workshops are commonly used to promote the adoption of research-based instructional strategies among physics and astronomy faculty. After learning about such strategies, faculty are often motivated to modify and…