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General physics laboratory 1999-2013
Mizuho Schwalm
Background
After the retirement of Professor Cole who kept physics lab in order no one assumed his role.
Thus the condition of general physics labs deteriorated quickly. When Professor Tar-pin Chen
assumed the Chair of the Physics Department he observed the following situation as described
in his words:
“I found lab equipment often not functioning properly, TAs were left alone for setting up
student labs without supervision (hence labs were often not set up correctly), TAs were
swapping lab sections without knowledge of the Department and lab instructions were
modified (and often wrong) by TAs. Occasionally labs were cancelled because the TA
did not show up. No one was taking responsibility for the laboratory equipment, which
was deteriorating.”
1999-2004
The physics chair then, Professor Chen, asked me to help straightening the situation. So I
played the role of laboratory coordinator voluntarily, initially without pay.
Since 1999 I have worked as a laboratory coordinator. During the past fourteen years I have
been involved all aspects of lab operation for two-semester sequence physics labs (Phys
161L/162L, 211L/212L, 251L/252L) and more recently Phys 130L.
Below is a summary of what I did during that first five year period.
(1) Maintained the lab equipment and documented the storage and maintenance. I also
assisted the department in planning for the acquisition of lab equipment and computer
hardware/software.
(2) Designed lab equipment and lab exercises as needed.
(3) With Dr. W. Schwalm I converted the lab manuals from typewritten form to electronic
form and revised them completely. The revised lab manuals were used for four years and
were updated annually. (Constant updating must be performed periodically as the
situation evolves.)
(4) Taught labs whenever TAs were not available as a back-up person, or sometimes taught
certain lab sections for an entire semester.
(5) Coordinated TA assignment and lab scheduling.
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(6) Supervised Lab TAs. This includes holding weekly TA meetings to go over the lab exercises
and supervising lab setups.
(7) Conducted detailed student surveys and monitored performance of TAs to assess
effectiveness.
(8) Maintained General Physics Lab web pages.
Since that initial period up to now 2013 I have been involved all of these activities except item
(3)—since the labs are now in digital form. Changing needs and nature of the student
population, new findings of physics education research and improvement of technology
demand continuous revision beyond the constant upkeep of general physics laboratory
instruction. Thus with Dr. W. Schwalm I have been involved in a dramatic revision of the lab
program.
2006-08 NSF CCLI project
UND Physics received NSF CCLI (NSF Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Instruction) award
“Collaborative Research: Adaptation of University of Minnesota Problem Solving Labs to
Introductory Physics Sequence”, (2006-2008 PI William A Schwalm). As one of the Co-PIs my
effort was focused on fulfilling the proposed project objectives. During this period the lab
activities were restructured to creating the collaborative problem solving labs—highlighting
role-based collaboration, demanding active in-class participation from the students with more
real-world context, while still utilizing most of the existing lab equipment. One innovation we
added was the use of small whiteboards for in-class discussions. The whiteboards were
provided for each group, which it appears had not been done before at other institutions in
connection with the labs.
Introduction of video analysis for lab exercises
First semester physics lab—mostly mechanics—deals with motion analysis. Traditionally,
motion analysis was done using stopwatch, meter-sticks, motion detector or smart pulley timer
using a machine interface such as LabPro (Vernier) or 850 Universal Interface (PASCO). In early
stages I tested both types of interface for UND labs and the department decided to use LabPro
for the intro labs. Unfortunately these computer-based interfaces and sensors become obsolete
in every five to ten years.
Old ways of measurement require both machine interface and sensors that depend on the type
of experiment and are more abstract to the students than more direct video analysis but they
do provide rather accurate results.
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UND intro labs switched to a configuration where most of the motion analysis is done by video
analysis with stopwatch and meter-sticks as a quantitative check.
While video analysis
sacrifices some accuracy in measurements, it does not require any sensor nor interface, other
than a video camera, so this one set-up is universal to all motion analysis.
One of the advantages of using video analysis is that video analysis is the only method we know
capable of handling motion in two dimensions without getting into complexity. Its application
ranges from a traditional physics laboratory set-up to more ambitions outdoor applications—
like tracing a golf ball in flight or analyzing sports events. So, for the past decade, as
inexpensive quality webcams or digital cameras have become available, more physics
instructors are using video analysis for introductory labs. The trend of 1990s toward rushing to
use a machine interface and sensors has somewhat reversed. UM-TC CPSL also uses video for
motion analysis.
Greg Johnson, a Summer 2006 UND Physics REU student, worked with me on this project and
produced useful results that furnished the ground work for the video analysis component of the
CPSL instruction.
Upgrading and managing lab computers
In 1999 the lab computers were diskless floppy-based DOS operating systems. I upgraded these
machines through several cycles, to the current fourteen networked student computers in lab
rooms 110 and 112. The computers we now have are Dell Latitude and are running under
Windows 7 Active Directory. I was in charge of the entire process including writing proposals
for the department, selecting machines, rebuilding over fifty repurposed computers, installing
the necessary software, networking and maintaining these lab computers.
Summer GTA training
Shortly after we received the NSF CCLI grant we participated in one of the UM-TC summer
training sessions. This resulted in planning and developing a similar end-of-summer
orientation and 3-day training workshop for Physics GTAs at UND. Summer Physics GTA
training has been conducted under the direction of W. Schwalm and me for the past five years.
Restructuring Phys lab manuals
With W. Schwalm I rewrote the entire two-semester sequence lab instructions into CPSL form.
This is the second round of total redesign and rewriting of the lab manuals. From then on I
have been revising them as needed annually. Sometimes the revisions have included creating
new lab exercises or introducing different equipment, in addition to correcting errors and
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rewriting. Most recently I have been reviewing and revising a separate Phys 161L/162L version
of the lab instruction, rewriting yet again into a more pedagogically sound form after learning
that the lab materials were too challenging for students taking Phys 161L/162L. We needed to
move somewhat away from the original Minnesota CPSL scheme and to a more approachable
and less demanding form. Yet, we have tried to retain some of the basic CPSL Philosophy—
demanding role-based collaboration and requiring students to read, think and write instead of
just to fill in data and compute something that they might not understand. I adapted the CPSL
manual to include Video Analysis activities (Priscilla W Laws et al.) for the 161L labs and CASTLE
(Capacitor-Aided System for Teaching and Learning Electricity) for 162L labs. Both of these
approaches are funded by NSF repeatedly and have been widely used.
Phys 130L
Dr. Lykken was the regular instructor for one-semester course Phys 130 Natural Science-Physics
for middle-school pre-service science teachers. After Professor Lykken retired, I taught the
course during Spring 2011 and again Spring 2013. For this I decided to use Paul G. Hewitt’s
highly successful textbook, Conceptual Physics with his accompanying ten-volume DVD lecture
series “Conceptual Physics Alive!” that was given at the University of Hawaii. According to AIP
(American Institute of Physics) statistics division, over 80% of all conceptual physics courses
taught in high schools in the U.S. use this textbook. I also provided demonstration equipment
similar to what Hewitt used in his lectures for my Phys 130 labs and asked the students to try
the demonstrations for themselves and to explain them to the others using their own words.
The course covered mechanics, fluids, heat, oscillations and waves, sound—all subjects middle
school teachers are expected to know. For this lab I personally designed a few lab
activities/experiments and also adapted many creative activities/experiments designed by K12 teachers. Though more revisions are still necessary now the lab manuals for this course is
ready for use.
Outreach activities
I am a member of AAPT (American Association of Physics Teachers) and NDSTA (North Dakota
Science Teachers Association). I have participated regularly in both national and local meetings
to present what is going on in our labs and to learn about the national trend. I also read daily
and sometimes participate in the discussions among the members of the national physics
demonstrators/lab managers group (TAP-L) which is an excellent resource for lab managers.