Teaching Physics in the post-COVID 19 University

In the past two months Digital Learning has, if not come of age, has demonstrated its central place in University teaching for the short, medium and long term. The question arises as to what shape delivery, teaching, learning and assessment will take in higher education?

I see the recent change to online delivery and assessment as having been an opportunity rather than a problem to be surmounted. In general a blended approach to learning is most likely to be the mode by which the highest degree of successful completion is to be achieved by students, with multiple modes of delivery and multiple modes of assessment key to this. Within physics and other sciences in which learning is in general highly laboratory-driven this poses several challenges which include: 

1. How to deliver material in such a way as to ensure that students maintain a social construct to their education; 

2. How to ensure that students maintain an active engagement with material out of class; 

3. How to balance the depth of learning within individual topics and the development of connections outside of them; 

4. How to allow practical enquiry by students remotely (if at all);

The creation of social constructs and peer learning in a remote learning paradigm through a VLE provides the means for group assignments such as through problem-based learning, which can ensure that students maintain an active engagement with the lecture material. This can also provide material for assessment which may or may not obviate the need for a final summative assessment. A plethora of multi-media based open educational resources are now available to support teaching in this physics, including textbooks (www.openstax.org), recorded lectures (MIT Open Courseware) and podcasts (U. Oxford), plus simulations and computational exercise sets (https://www.compadre.org/PICUP/), to highlight but a few examples. Structuring, blending and connecting this material together forms the conundrum for the lecturer on the teaching side. However the challenge is lessened by the extensive literature which exists to allow instructors new to or unfamiliar with online instruction to rapidly become acquainted with best practice methodologies and issues. 

On the laboratory investigation side this is quite a bit more of a challenge as obviously physical contact with laboratory apparatus may not be possible for some or all experiments. This requires a complete rethink as to how remote laboratory instruction might proceed, particularly so for advanced physics instruction.

For this type of laboratory activity the literature is much less mature than that surrounding remote teaching and learning. Before dealing with what literature there is we must distinguish between virtual laboratories from remote laboratories. In many instances virtual laboratories involve simulation of physical systems without any recourse to real-world data and do not necessarily allow students to develop the skills necessary of practicing experimental physicists including experimental design, developing technical and practical skills and analysing and visualising data(1). While theory-based computational models do allow students to access concepts and constructs which are potentially impossible or unsafe to simulate experimentally the level to which the student gains an understanding of the underlying physics is debatable(2). There are many models here, including Wolfram’s Demonstration Project which possess a high level of functionality and interactivity that can provide a highly useful mechanism for student enquiry. A more recent approach has been the prototyping of virtual and augmented reality-based experiments (2,3) which could provide students with access to complex experimental systems. It is debatable whether the introduction of this type of approach introduces new barriers to access. Student perceptions of this type of instruction have generally been favourable as it provides an immersive experience, though many feel that it is not a substitute for physical laboratories(2)(3), despite it being attractive for instructors as a means to record student engagement with experiments remotely. Additionally it possesses a high overhead for implementation and its importance for advanced physical laboratories may be overstated. 

For many instructors an importance will be attached to the exploration of the functionality of apparatus and the effect of this on measurements in practice, such that the remote laboratory will be that most favoured(3). This is particularly true where the expectation is that students are being prepared for careers in research. Various examples of remote controlled laboratories have been created over the past 15 years (4)(5–7). In these examples students operate experimental apparatus remotely in real time, generating data which they report on off-line, where the apparatus is set up and managed by the laboratory assistant and/or technician. While this is an attractive approach which appears to deliver work product and learning outcomes that match those seen with traditional laboratory instruction (8) many of these experiments again require a significant overhead for implementation, are quite complex and have not seen widespread implementation. Indeed some examples of this approach have been beset by a lack of recognition of this learning mode by Universities for credit transfer (9).

One pathway to allow remote student laboratory enquiry is via the use of low cost microcontrollers and microprocessors such as the Arduino Uno and Raspberry Pi. The Arduino, together with some basic electrical circuitry, electronics, sensors, and associated equipment have been variously shown to offer the potential for individualised and group-based remote student-driven and student-paced enquiry at both introductory and advanced level in physics(10–13). While this does offer a solution for enquiry in certain physics disciplines including electricity and magnetism, it does not necessarily do so for others such as nuclear and particle physics, quantum physics and similar topics. However it can have utility in limiting the time students require on campus. In the post-COVID 19 University it is likely that this option will see scrutiny as an option for student led remote laboratory enquiry.

Bibliography

1.        Kozminski J, Lewandowski H, Beverly N, Lindaas S, Deardorff D, Reagan A, et al. AAPT Recommendations for the Undergraduate Physics Laboratory Curriculum Subcommittee Membership. 2014. 

2.        Pirker ! ! ” J, Lesjak I, Gütl C. An Educational Physics Laboratory in Mobile Versus Room Scale Virtual Reality-A Comparative Study. [cited 2020 Apr 28]; Available from: https://doi.org/10.3991/ijoe.v13i08.7371http://www.i-joe.org

3.        Chen S, Lo HC, Lin JW, Liang JC, Chang HY, Hwang FK, et al. Development and implications of technology in reform-based physics laboratories. Phys Rev Spec Top – Phys Educ Res. 2012 Oct 16;8(2):020113. 

4.        Fabregas E, Farias G, Dormido-Canto S, Dormido S, Esquembre F. Developing a remote laboratory for engineering education. Comput Educ. 2011 Sep 1;57(2):1686–97. 

5.        Gröber S, Vetter M, Eckert B, Jodl H-J. Experimenting from a distance—remotely controlled laboratory (RCL). Eur J Phys. 2007 Apr 30;28(3):S127. 

6.        Gröber S, Eckert B, Jodl H-J. A new medium for physics teaching: results of a worldwide study of remotely controlled laboratories (RCLs). Eur J Phys. 2014 Dec 13;35(1):018001. 

7.        Thoms L-J, Girwidz R. Virtual and remote experiments for radiometric and photometric measurements. Eur J Phys. 2017 Jun 22;38(5):055301.

8.        Lang J. Comparative Study of Hands-on and Remote Physics Labs for First Year University Level Physics Students [Internet]. Vol. 6, Transformative Dialogues: Teaching & Learning Journal. 2012 [cited 2020 Apr 28]. Available from: http://iet.open.ac.uk/PEARL

9.        Can you teach lab science via remote labs? | Tony Bates [Internet]. [cited 2020 Apr 28]. Available from: https://www.tonybates.ca/2013/04/22/can-you-teach-lab-science-via-remote-labs/

10.      Galeriu C, Edwards S, Esper G. An Arduino Investigation of Simple Harmonic Motion. Phys Teach. 2014 Mar;52(3):157–9. 

11.      de Castro LHM, Lago BL, Mondaini F. Damped Harmonic Oscillator with Arduino. J Appl Math Phys. 2015;03(06):631–6. 

12.      Bouquet F, Bobroff J, Fuchs-Gallezot M, Maurines L. Project-based physics labs using low-cost open-source hardware. Am J Phys [Internet]. 2017 Mar 16 [cited 2020 Apr 28];85(3):216–22. Available from: http://aapt.scitation.org/doi/10.1119/1.4972043

13.      Kotseva I, Gaydarova M, Angelov K, Hoxha F. Physics experiments and demonstrations based on Arduino. In: AIP Conference Proceedings [Internet]. American Institute of Physics Inc.; 2019 [cited 2020 Apr 28]. p. 180020. Available from: http://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.5091417

Open Education Resources and Practices

In democratic society not only is it desirable that citizens are allowed to be free to hold an opinion, they should also be free to be informed, that is be free to access, transform and redistribute knowledge. In our digital age it is said that we are have the freedom to access information at any time, in any space, whereas the contrary is true. While information remains behind publisher paywalls, and while inequity of broadband access remains an issue around the globe (including within 1^st world countries) the freedom to access and educate does not exist. Additionally while instruction remains behind institutional paywalls the facility to access educators is remote for many students, particularly those from poorer backgrounds. Clearly both are social barriers which essentially remove or reduce the rights of all.

Open resources for education do abound, but the ability and learning context to allow students to assimilate material, connect concepts and develop understanding remains out of reach for many without open education, that is free access to educators resources and access to networks of peer learners. A modern objective of many higher education institutions is to facilitate access to all, ‘non-standard’ students. A personal definition of open education includes a set of combined democratically available educational supports including free (a) access to instruction and mentoring (b) learning resources and (c) peer- plus educator networks. This combined architecture can facilitate learning by students from all backgrounds and geographical locations.

A key component of all of this is the development by educators of pedagogical methodologies that allow open education practices both in a local and online context, and across a range of subjects including the sciences. A great many advances have been made by educators across the globe in this regard, though the requirement for practical education is required this remains a hurdle and a point for reflection and development. Much of scientific endeavour, particularly in physics, has become a global-scale endeavour in recent times, with enormous experiments such as CERN’s LHC and the Event Horizon Telescope involving scientists from all regions and backgrounds. Since research can break down barriers in this way it remains for education to follow suit.

Action Plan for Online Teaching

Given the current state of affairs with regard to #COVID19 myself and colleagues Catherine Gorman and Alan Redmond at TU Dublin have generated the following set of guidelines for delivery of online classes for reference by lecturers. Thoughts and comments all welcome.

Before delivery of the module it is important to ensure that students have the facility and willingness to engage with online content:

Task	Rationale	Action
Determine student level of internet access	Understand equity of access	Survey of students through MicroSoft Forms etc.
Assess student experiences and level of buy-in to online delivery and assessment	Prevent later challenges to grading	Survey of students through MicroSoft Forms with their digital sign-off

Table 1. Student Planning

Once lecturers have the necessary training and skills for online delivery, and are certain that the content has potential for online delivery then there are a range of pedagogical methods and resources which can be helpful in this space:

• On-line lecture/webinar
• Virtual Q&A/Tutorial
• Pre-recorded Videos
• MOOCs
• YouTube videos
• Reflective work submitted electronically
• Quizzes
• Critic analysis of journal articles
• Remote practical work

During delivery itself there are also a number issues to bear in mind:

Task	Rationale	Action
Communicating to the students(and Manager)	Clear communication is key at all stages of process	Communication
Delivering the Module	Tip:  ensure there are clear instructions as to how to enrol;  Tip: at the beginning of each session, provide clear instructions as to how it will operate ( mics on/off Q&A, browser (Chrome only with Bongo plugin installed) etc);  Tip: Sprinkle your delivery with pause moments, ask for feedback or set in-class challenges;	Practice
Gathering review and Feedback from the students post delivery	As this is a little different to normal delivery, additional information for module QA is required	Feedback

Table 2. Tips for success and evaluation

Below are some of the online discussion articles and journal references we found useful in this regard. More thoughts as we move forward.

As the coronavirus closes schools and teaching moves online, will students still learn?

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0142159X.2019.1571569

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/online-learning-during-the-covid-19-pandemic

http://theconversation.com/covid-19-pushes-universities-to-switch-to-online-classes-but-are-they-ready-132728

Digital Learning and Digital Identities

In the past 10 years I have experimented with various forms of teaching in a digital context, including (a) synchronous webinars, (b) asynchronous video lectures used in a face-to-face context and (c) asynchronous monitoring of real-world activities in a laboratory context.

The greatest issues I have found with any one of these activities is the absence of cues from learners that can influence the direction of a class in a traditional face-to-face environment, particularly so for either synchronous or asynchronous delivery of lectures and/or tutorials. In (a) I typically use lots of pauses, feedback moments and perhaps post-lecture MCQs to engage and maintain the interest of learners, while in (b) similar approaches, mainly based around in-video or post-video activities tend to work reasonably well. Active engagement is key, and choosing a VLE which allows for this type of class is essential. 

Of course tailoring of the class to suit a given individual or group of learners needs is also something which the online context does not always do well. There are several issues here:

• the functionality within the VLE, allowing for in-video interactivity in terms of learners being queried on their learning, feedback from this then allowing several additional hints or explanations to be supplied which can then be satisfied by additional activities or content; 
• the time required to generate interactive materials such as these, particularly when modern academics have so many additional draws upon them. In general I have found that there tends to be a limit to which the online engagement can answer or deal with all learner misconceptions and further tutorial engagement is often necessary in light of what analytics of the online engagement has highlighted. This can be useful to provide focussed supplementary classes that are either face-to-face or remote.

For academics further issues remain around developing an online digital identity or presence, but many tools do exist to create (i) static and (ii) dynamic content, which can, respectively be (i) publications, lecture materials, reflections and (ii) regular feeds from blogs, Twitter posts etc. I use Google Scholar, ORCID, ResearchGate for identification and dissemination of research content which is then linked to Twitter announcements and I blog here on WordPress. I also have a presence on LinkedIn but not elsewhere. For now this is the extent of my digital identity. For me care needs to be taken here to ensure not only that one manages and approves content, but that it is integrated across various profiles and that an example is shown to younger academics and learners around what, when, where, how and why to post materials.

Reflections on Digital Learning

It’s some time since I delved into the digital learning space, and while I had a deep dive initially I’ve now had some time to assimilate and evaluate.

I read Dr. Tony Bates blog entry on ‘Why lectures are dead’ and a few thoughts came to mind on the basis of his thesis:

1. What I have observed over my two decades as a lecturer is that the best teachers are those who inspire, show a pathway and perhaps show a mechanism to understand knowledge, rather than those who simply reiterate.
2. So I agree with Tony that overall it doesn’t matter in that context how any of those objectives are achieved, be they face to face in real time or asynchronously by another mode.
3. However, I would say that this is an evolving space still, coming close to a steady state, whereby digital vehicles for teaching have been tried, tested, failed and refined over the past decade or so, and some worthwhile and effective approaches have been found. There is bound to be further development here within the next decade, but for now…
4. I think that lectures will become a sub-component of the teaching approach which will gradually reduce until academics are happy that the new state produces verifiable learning and retention of knowledge and understanding.

I believe we are still some way from that position. For certain subjects evaluation and critique are at their core though for others, particularly science and engineering, concepts and procedures are part of the knowledge base and it is harder to see a large scale abandonment of the face to face aspect of the teaching of the subject in that context, particularly for the advanced levels of a programme. I do see the lecture mode diminish over time once techniques for verification of knowledge gain and deep understanding have been developed in this domain but this remains a bridge for us to cross.

In a classroom environment there is always an group dynamic by which members of the class motivate work by their peers, perhaps in a competitive but generally productive way, which the online environment loses. Of course there is that sense of belonging to a class which can be more remote in digital learning.

For many of today’s lecturers the challenge is that we’ve not been through the experience ourselves as students, and this is a component of the new learning for lecturers of the future.
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Socrative and other stories…

Having used Socrative through a number of class groups I have some recommendations for tutors considering using the app, which I have in general found to be very useful. These recommendations, along with case studies on using other electronic teaching apps, are available on telu.me.

Enhancing Senior Laboratory Instruction with Google Platforms

In the past two academic years a team in the School of Physics at DIT has been engaged in a programme of modification of senior laboratories, and specifically, a trialling of cloud-based recording of data and reporting in senior physics laboratories, using Google platforms. The results of this work have recently been published by DIT, and are available here.

“Zero cost technology for flipping lectures” – Presentation at Dublin Institute of Technology E-Learning Summer School June 24th to 26th 2015

The process of flipping my Nuclear Physics lectures relied heavily on the use of technology, both for the student and lecturer, to facilitate synchronous and asynchronous access to notes and assessments. I presented an overview of the methods, technologies and outcomes from the flipping project to DITs ELSS in June 2015, which is available in pdf format at this link: Summer School Presentation 2015.

Thanks to the audience on the day for helpful feedback and encouragement. It was an excellent session. Please feel free to comment and/or give feedback.

Creating pre-lecture recordings (with iPad and MacBook/iMac)….

Many tutors who use a flipped lecture approach create their voiceover content in sound proof studios. I wanted to explore whether recording voiceover videos with annotation of slides was possible without the need for the use of studio. In this blog I’ll explain how I did this using an iPad and MacBook, and from time to time using a desktop iMac.

The iPad and MacBook are part of the Apple ‘ecosystem’ and interface with each other over Bluetooth. On iOS the Keynote app is available, which can control and provide the means to draw or use a ‘laser pointer’ on the OS X Keynote app on either MacBook or iMac. The only extra piece of kit you’ll need is a stylus; I used a Kensington Virtuoso Pro, which doubles up as a real laser pointer.

To connect iPad to MacBook or iMac, turn on Bluetooth on both, or ensure they are both connected to the same Wifi network. Then tap the remote icon on the top left of the iPad as shown below; having detected the MacBook the iPad will create a ‘token’ which can be verified on the MacBook allowing a connection to be established between the two devices.

 

At this point the lecture which is to be annotated on the MacBook should also be downloaded to the iPad. Then we switch to the MacBook and activate QuickTime.

In QuickTime Player a facility for screen recording is available. I use version 10.4. To begin, click File>New Screen Recording as shown here.

You will see a small window appear like the one just below. By clicking on the red circle at the centre of the window you begin a recording, which will be full-screen if you subsequently click on the screen anywhere.

An icon now appears on the top bar (to the left of the clock icon) which you can click on to stop recording.

At this point you can use the iPad to start the Keynote presentation and begin voiceover. I simply use the white earphones which are supplied with the iPad or iPhone and speak into its built-in microphone.

On the top right of the iPad screen you will see an icon for the use of a stylus to annotate slides.

A cross-bar appears at the bottom of the iPad screen from which many options for drawing or using a laser pointer to annotate slides may be selected. Slides may still be advanced using the arrows.

Finally, QuickTime allows video to be edited, trimmed and volume adjustments performed. Overall this produces excellent results despite the low cost of its implementation.

 

Socrative for In-class continuous assessment in physics

There are a myriad of tablet and PC based apps for in-class assessment using the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) approach. As mentioned in a previous post, I’ve briefly assessed the functionality of them and chose Socrative for this purpose, mainly for its zero cost to both teachers and students.

Socrative comes in two forms; the app for students allows them to access questions set by the lecturer in their ‘room’ which is a secure area in which the tutor can upload their assessment material. The tutor can edit content on the fly on a tablet with their version of the app, or through the web portal.

There are several types of assessment facilitated by Socrative as shown in the screenshot below.

Quizzes are the traditional MCQ format and are the one I have mainly used. Space Races allow students to be assigned membership of teams and to track their progress in a time-based in-class assignment. Quick Questions allow a tutor to set an MCQ question and allow students view anonymous real-time responses for their whole class. Exit Tickets allow a tutor to set a question at the end of class or students to give feedback on the class through the app. As I say, I have mainly used the MCQ (Quiz) option, which can give the students feedback on their work, and for which responses are collated by the app from all students and are exported to Excel. They are subsequently downloadable to Google Drive.

The purpose of introducing Socrative to my lectures was to flip lecture delivery. I have recorded lectures (subject of another post) for the students to view pre-class, with MCQs to be answered before the class, such that face-to-face time could be used to address conceptual and computational difficulties with nuclear physics (which would be raised by the pre-class MCQs). After explaining any flaws in understanding raised by the pre-lecture MCQ, there was an additional CA component through Socrative in-class such that the students receive immediate feedback on the improvement in their understanding. This innovation was inspired by work of a colleague, Dr. Michael Seery of the School of Chemistry, published here: http://bit.ly/1strha2. The ultimate aim of using the app is to increase the engagement, retention and problem solving of students via in-class assessment and logging of responses through Socrative.

Over the course of the semester we had in-class assessment quizzes in 12 lectures using the app, mainly through MCQs where questions are either conceptual (I.e choose the correct description of the effect/concept) or computational (I.e. choose the correct answer or result closest to your own). An example of one of these MCQs is shown below.

The overall experience of using the app was positive, though a few pointers for lecturers are worthwhile stating here:

• Be careful not to ask students to look to the web for information needed for a particular calculation (e.g. isotope masses) – they may have to log out of the app before logging back in and completing the assessment. This results in duplicate entries for that student which must be deleted by the lecturer by hand ;
• Wifi/data access is critical to this app being useful in a time-sensitive in-class assessment;

There is also potential for innovation here through allowing the students to perform calculations in-app rather than simply post responses.

The experience of this lecture model  was positive; throughout the semester the students described the lectures as very “lively”, “interactive” and “engaging” (their words). I also found the experience of using Socrative as a component of a flipped lecture approach as a useful starting point, with potential for further innovation into the future.