Resources to Help You Deliver Your Remote Courses

By Beth A. Cunningham, AAPT Executive Officer

Many physics educators have had to make dramatic changes to their courses in March to convert them from face-to-face delivery to remote learning. For many faculty, this has been challenging since they only teach face-to-face with students and have no experience teaching remotely. Furthermore, many of our institutions have built success on close student-faculty interactions. This has left many faculty scrambling to provide a satisfactory learning experience for their students. The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and other physics and astronomy professional societies have shared resources to help physics educators during this challenging time. Below is a list of some of the most used resources.

PhysPort is a great source for ideas and resources that align with research-based pedagogical principles and research-validated resources for teaching online. It also has great ideas that can be use to make the online teaching process easier.

The Physics Teacher (TPT) and the American Journal of Physics (AJP) have compiled a collection of specialized articles that focus on remote learning. These articles highlight the use of smart phones for lab experiments as well as other activities that can be adapted for use by students at home. The articles have been made free to read, download and share for a limited time. https://publishing.aip.org/publications/journals/covid-19/aapt/

ComPADRE (the Physics Digital Library) has many different resources such as Open Source Physics, Interactive Video Vignettes, and computational materials for physics classes that can be used to teach courses remotely.

https://www.compadre.org

AAPT also has many discussion groups of active members and friends that allow the sharing of ideas, plans, activities, labs, lesson, etc. To join a discussion list use this link https://www.aapt.org/Resources/lists.cfm?_zs=1tmEW&_zl=AtR22

AAPT’s Committee on Physics in Two-Year Colleges has created a website that has many resources including grading papers online, taking good notes, remote clickers, recording classes or lectures using screen-capturing software, inserting quiz questions in the middle of presentations, and many more.

https://sites.google.com/a/aapt.org/comm/resources

AAPT’s Digi Kits are vetted collections that include a hands-on, inquiry-driven activity inspired by articles from The Physics Teacher journal, digital resources that support student and teacher learning, and are aligned closely to the Framework for K-12 Science Education and NGSS performance expectations. Although these have been designed for K-12 physics educators, many can be used in higher education.

https://aapt.org/K12/All-lessons.cfm

Physlets are over 800 ready-to-run interactive exercises for the teaching of the introductory physics sequence (kinematics through optics). This material uses a standard easy-to-understand interface designed with a sound use of pedagogy in mind.

PhET Interactive Simulations provides a collection of over 150 simulations, as well as sim-based lessons, labs and teacher resources. All are licensed as open (free) education resources. Tips for remote learning: See article in this newsletter

Interactive Lecture Demonstrations (ILDs) are a great active learning tool that students can use at home. ILDs are designed to enhance conceptual learning of physics lectures through active engagement of students in the learning process. ILDs consist of pictures, videos, displays and real physics simulations that are available to substitute for hands-on experiments. https://pages.uoregon.edu/sokoloff/HomeAdaptedILDs.html

PERbites is a resource available to the physics education community. The purpose of PERbites is to connect physics research in all areas and make the results of physics education research meaningful and accessible to all.

https://perbites.org/about/

Diagnoser Tools is a coordinated and coherent suite of free online tools that teachers use with their students to scaffold and monitor the development of deep understanding in science. http://www.diagnoser.com

APS April Back Page is “Moving Physics Courses Online on Short Notice” by Chandralekha Singh. This article includes links to a number of different resources.

https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/202004/backpage.cfm

An article about physics smart phone apps

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v13/68

AAS has a website that lists a number of resources including AAS curated online teaching resources, community submitted online teaching resources, and Youtube videos on tools and tips of teaching astronomy online. https://aas.org/education/aas-responds-increased-online-instructional-needs

The American Sociological Association has a webinar on “Transitioning to Online Teaching in the Face of COVID-19” https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Un66VwL8TjC2YTgWJ1JarQ

First published in the Council on Undergraduate Research Physics & Astronomy Spring 2020 newsletter and updated for the FEd newsletter.

Beth A. Cunningham is the Executive Officer of the American Association of Physics Teachers. She provides leadership on a number of physics education initiatives including the Physics and Astronomy SEA Change project that offers departments a self-assessment process to effect sustainable change with regard to diversity, equity, and inclusion, the eAlliance project supporting women physics and astronomy faculty members via peer-mentoring groups, and the NSF funded PhysTEC project (in partnership with APS) to increase the number and quality of high school physics teachers.

Disclaimer – The articles and opinion pieces found in this issue of the APS Forum on Education Newsletter are not peer refereed and represent solely the views of the authors and not necessarily the views of the APS.