Our best juniors still struggle with Gauss’s Law: Characterizing their difficulties

et al. 2012

Self Cite

As part of an effort to systematically improve our junior-level E&M I course, we have developed a tool to assess student conceptual learning of electrostatics at the upper division. Together with a group of physics faculty, we established a list of learning goals for the course that, with results from student observations and interviews, served as a guide in creating the Colorado Upper-Division Electrostatics (CUE) assessment. The result is a 17-question open-ended post-test diagnostic (with an optional 7-question pretest) and an accompanying grading rubric. We present measures of the validation and reliability of the instrument and grading rubric, plus results from 535 students in both standard and interactive-engagement courses across seven institutions as a baseline for the instrument. Overall, we find that the CUE is a valid and reliable measure, and the data herein are intended to be of use to researchers and faculty interested in using the CUE to measure student learning.

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…See previous publications [11,12] for more examples of common trends on the exam. The CUE provides a rich source of fruitful data for ongoing and future research of this nature.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Colorado Upper-Division Electrostatics diagnostic: A conceptual assessment for the junior level

Chasteen

Pepper

et al. 2012

Self Cite

“…At the beginning of our work, very little existed in the area of upper-division difficulties, but now a body of literature exists, including work from CU [27][28][29][30][31][32] and elsewhere [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40]. These investigations have provided insight into various concepts, producing lists of difficulties in various topics including Ampere's law [30], Gauss's law [28], and vector calculus [29]. More recently, we have developed an analytical framework to investigate findings more strategically and to organize these difficulties more coherently [32] and analyze particular areas of difficulty [27,31].…”

Section: Student Difficulties: What Are Students Learning?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Educational transformation in upper-division physics: The Science Education Initiative model, outcomes, and lessons learned

Chasteen

Wilcox

et al. 2015

Self Cite

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Upper Division Physics Courses.] In response to the need for a scalable, institutionally supported model of educational change, the Science Education Initiative (SEI) was created as an experiment in transforming course materials and faculty practices at two institutions -University of Colorado Boulder (CU) and University of British Columbia. We find that this departmentally focused model of change, which includes an explicit focus on course transformation as supported by a discipline-based postdoctoral education specialist, was generally effective in impacting courses and faculty across the institution. In CU's Department of Physics, the SEI effort focused primarily on upper-division courses, creating high-quality course materials, approaches, and assessments, and demonstrating an impact on student learning. We argue that the SEI implementation in the CU Physics Department, as compared to that in other departments, achieved more extensive impacts on specific course materials, and high-quality assessments, due to guidance by the physics education research group-but with more limited impact on the departmental faculty as a whole. We review the process and progress of the SEI Physics at CU and reflect on lessons learned in the CU Physics Department in particular. These results are useful in considering both institutional and faculty-led models of change and course transformation. I. NEED FOR A MODEL OF CHANGEThere is a rising tide of attention to the improvement of undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teaching. This attention is driven by the increasing emphasis on science and technology as the current and future driver of national economic growth and the results of discipline-based education research (DBER), which is indicating clear opportunities for improvement. We see evidence of this increased attention in numerous calls for action from disciplinary societies, national networks, and federal agencies [1][2][3][4][5][6].However, as long as the impetus, success, and preservation of change relies on single individuals, rather than organizational structures that support that change, teaching innovations will be inherently fragile, and scaling up those efforts will be challenging. Previous research has demonstrated the high rate of loss of both the number and fidelity of use of instructional innovations [7,8]. A focus on individual decision making and creation of instructional materials is also inherently inefficient due to duplication of effort, as faculty continually reinvent the wheel. A new model for change is needed that guides coherent collective efforts by making innovative, effective teaching an institutional goal that is embedded in the established organizational structures. Such a model would allow this rising tide of attention to STEM education to lift our collective boats towards a higher goal, rather than leaving STEM faculty paddling around on their own in an attempt to keep their heads above water.As a field, scholars ...

“…The free-response format provides a particularly rich data source for identifying and characterizing topics that students find particularly challenging. Examples of this from CU span a number of topics including Gauss's law [42], Ampere's law [43], divergence of vector fields [44], Taylor series [7,45], quantum energies or time development [13], and electric potential [46]. In some cases, investigation of difficulties identified by one of these assessments has inspired broader research efforts.…”

Section: To Investigate Student Difficultiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development and uses of upper-division conceptual assessments

Wilcox

Baily

et al. 2015

Self Cite

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Upper Division Physics Courses.] The use of validated conceptual assessments alongside conventional course exams to measure student learning in introductory courses has become standard practice in many physics departments. These assessments provide a more standard measure of certain learning goals, allowing for comparisons of student learning across instructors, semesters, institutions, and pedagogies. Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have developed several similar assessments designed to target the more advanced physics of upper-division classical mechanics, electrostatics, quantum mechanics, and electrodynamics courses. Here, we synthesize the existing research on our upper-division assessments and discuss some of the barriers and challenges associated with their development, validation, and implementation as well as some of the strategies we have used to overcome these barriers.