Workshop Details - Spring 2004 meeting of ISAAPT

All workshops will be held Friday morning, April 23, 2004 from 10:30 am to noon.

Workshop W1. "Using Classroom Electronic Polling Systems to Increase Student Engagement", Tim Stelzer, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL. Classroom electronic polling systems have recently gained popularity as a means to improve student lecture participation. The department of physics at UIUC has used a variety of these systems over the past five years gaining an appreciation for their benefits, as well as their shortcomings. This workshop will include an overview of the commercial systems available, as well the issues involved in successfully incorporating an electronic polling system into lectures.

Workshop W2. "Tycho: Enhancing Your Course with Web Technology”, Curtis Shoaf, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL. Tycho is a powerful computer package which will enable you to put as much (or as little) of your course online as necessary to maximize your students' learning. Tycho has two main components, a grade book, and homework drivers. The grade book provides both students and instructor with secure access to their progress in the course from any Web-enabled browser. The homework drivers allow the instructor to choose from a large variety of exercises ranging from sophisticated Interactive Examples to traditional homework problems to surveys for Just-In-Time teaching. Tycho is available free of charge, and many Illinois schools have already incorporated it into their physics courses. In this workshop we will give you a brief tour of Tycho, as both a student and an instructor, to help you determine if it's right for your class.

Workshop W3. "Polarization and Refraction: Lab Experiences for the Introductory Course”, Paul Kwiat, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL. This workshop offers the opportunity to participate in one of the revised labs in our introductory physics sequence. These labs feature a "Predict-Observe-Explain" format designed to enhance learning of the basic concepts of physics. In this particular lab, activities include studies of transmission through polarizers, optical activity, Snell's Law, dispersion, and lenses.

Workshop W4. "Simple Experiments in Physics", Thomas Kuhn, Midwest Educational Representative, Pasco Scientific. High school teachers participate in hands-on laboratory activities doing experiments that can be done in a high school science lab. Pasco will provide the apparatus, interfaces and sensors to do the following:

Measure the Speed of Sound
Measure g
Verify Newton's 2nd Law
Find Time of Flight for Projectiles
Measure Induction
See Doppler Rocket in Action

Use Visual Accelerometer
Show Conservation of Momentum
Verify Conservation of Mechanical Energy
Look at Diffraction of Light by a Single Slit
Measure Period of a Simple Pendulum

The purpose of this workshop is to provide teachers with information and experiences that will allow them to conduct inquiry-oriented laboratory activities in their classrooms. Special attention on how to involve students with disabilities will also be included in this workshop.