Spring 2024 Meeting of the Illinois Section of the AAPT
"The role of labs in physics education"
April 19-20, 2024
Department of Physics - Loomis Hall
University of Illinois
Urbana, Illinois 61801-3080
Program Fees Attendees Attendance Hotels Directions Parking Photos
We invite you to attend the Spring 2024 meeting of the ISAAPT. Come to learn more about physics, discover new tools and techniques for teaching physics, share your experiences via contributed presentations and Take Fives, and meet old and new friends.
REGISTER FOR THE MEETING
Dues, registration fees, and payments for meals may be paid online.
Orders for meals must be placed by Friday, April 12.
Invited Speakers
Friday, April 19:
2:30-3:30 PM - "Quantum Tech is in Your Public Library" by Dr. Virginia Lorenz
Getting your hands on quantum hardware that uses entanglement is usually only possible if you have access to upper undergraduate laboratories or quantum research labs. We recently installed a publicly accessible quantum network in the Urbana Free Library that allows anyone to make measurements on entangled photons. The goal is to educate the public about the principles of quantum technology, engage them in research in quantum networks, and enable them to discover new applications for themselves. In this talk, I will present the technical and educational aspects of this work.
6:00 PM Banquet in the Siebel Center for Design
7:00-8:00 PM (Banquet speaker) - "Enhancing the Lab & Learning Experience Through Community Engagement" by Dr. Joe Bradley, Director of Engineering Education & Entrepreneurship Carle Illinois College of Medicine
What makes labs fun – is it the hands-on experience; the opportunity to learn by seeking out an answer; the opportunity to be creative and to explore intellectual curiosity; of course, as well as many other reasons. In this talk, we will share some of our experiences using our design lab course as an opportunity for outreach in our local school district. Resnick (2007) argues that the “kindergarten approach to learning” is an ideal strategy for developing creative-thinking skills. Resnick (2007) suggests that this approach has the spiraling cycle of Imagine, Create, Play, Share, Reflect, then back to Imagine, starting the cycle again. We leverage this framework in our work with the local schools to create the learning experience for both our first-year students as well as the students in the school district. What we have learned from our engagement is that young children have some of the most intriguing insights and ask very thought-provoking questions that have challenged the students in the design course. Our goal in the lab is to relive the “kindergarten” experience when we enjoyed very few intellectual constraints – when we could do anything.
Saturday, April 20:
10:00-11:00 AM - “Messiness provides a key for rich laboratory classrooms“ by Dr. Katie Ansell
The practice of doing science is inherently a complex and nonlinear process, but when we teach classroom laboratory activities it is necessary to adjust activities to make them doable for students. It can feel safest to get rid of the “messiness” to ensure that students reach canonical physics results. Yet when we do this, students lose the opportunity to learn about the nature of measurement, to respond to challenges, and to develop as proximal experts in the lab classroom environment. At the University of Illinois we have reformed our introductory laboratories with activities where students encounter and learn to navigate messiness. Through this process, students grow into resilient, resourceful, and reflective teammates and experimenters. In this talk I will discuss how such activities can be curated amongst the real constraints of time and frustration, and show some of the real and rich outcomes of such an approach.
