SOCIAL Physics:
www.koondis.com
Galen T. Pickett, Thomas Gredig,
Zvonimir Hlousek, Chuhee Kwon, James
Kisiel
CSU Long Beach, Physics and Astronomy
Outline
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Motivation
Engineering a curriculum: F2F
Engineering a curriculum: Online
Teamwork: Social Homework
Online Laboratory: Authentic STEM
CO Redesign Project
Conclusion
Motivation
• CSU Long Beach
– 36,000 students, many first-generation, low-income
– STEM Gateway for Long Beach
– 90,000 applied for 5,000 spots.
CSU Long Beach Physics
• 11 TT Faculty
• 3-year average, 18 undergrad degrees / 12 MS
degrees
• UD gateway course
• APS
– Minority Bridge Program
– PhysTEC Legacy Site
Motivation for Physics
• Important to get it right!
– Better careers for students
– Special skills, better problems
• Existence and justification.
– Recruit physics majors from introductory physics
– Double majors
– If we don’t, who will?
• We have a successful course F2F … export it.
Existing Course
• Physics for Scientists and Engineers (Mechanics)
• Not a “bottleneck” … an “accelerant”.
Engineering a Curriculum
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Matter and Interactions
Physics the way physicists do it
Formal reasoning
Derive results, then apply
Physical Problem Solving
Momentum / Energy / L
Engineering a Pedagogy
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Large lecture format: Hall of Science
I>Clicker
Cooperative
Interactive
Engaging
Honors Sections
• Support high performing students
• SCALE-UP classrooms, both 151 and 152
Long Beach Register, 2/5/14
Engineering Student Support
• Learning Assistants “Undergrad TA’s”
…but…
• Homework should be teaching physics
• 36% of exam performance “explained” by
homework (correlations, per student)
• Strengthen correlation exam <-> homework?
Koondis.com
• Zvonimir Hlousek,
…and me.
• CO incubation project.
Thomas Gredig
Social Homework / Koondis.com
• Async / Groups / Roles / Rotation / Any Content
• Social Media overlay / “like” “thanks”
Instructor Workflow
• Assign groups automatically (10 min,
presemester)
• Rotate “roles” week to week
– Custom: Director, Investigator, Executive, Skeptic
• Assign problem to group (5 min)
• Grading posts, likes, thanks -> grades (5 min)
• 600 students in 10 courses now (lower / upper
division, lecture, laboratory)
Instructor Feedback
Teamwork: Social Homework
• Asynchronous teams (Kisiel NARST 2013)
PHYS 151 Fall 2013
CONNECTED TO UNIVERSITY
HELPED CONFIDENCE
ENCOURAGED EFFORT
MORE FEEDBACK
EASY TO USE
HELPFUL FOR PROBLEM
3.52
3.9
3.74
4.14
4.28
4.24
Grades and SHW (Kisiel)
Accidental Experiment
• Spring 2012 –> Spring 2013, add SHW
• Correlations … significant at p<10^(-4)
Spring 2012
WebAssign
Lab
Clicker
Exams
Spring 2013
WebAssign
Lab
Clicker
Exams
Social Homework
WebAssign Lab Clicker Exams
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0.55084954
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0.54804547 0.666
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0.36564098 0.496 0.335
1
WebAssign Lab Clicker Exams Social Homework
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0.5043408
1
0.50210234 0.48
1
0.51141689 0.521 0.441
1
0.66832198 0.484 0.56 0.422
1
• Homework (finally) helps exam performance.
Mechanisms?
• Grit: Duckworth … “how is failure dealt with”
• Normalizing and metacognition
– Everyone sees everyone’s work
– Everyone is good at something
– Best students struggle
• Praise … “like” “thanks”
• Overlapping, reinforcing effects
• PER research project … why does this work?
Fully Online Mechanics
• Same Homework as Brick-and-Mortar
• Social Homework to support problem solving
• Social Homework: collaborate in experiment
design
• Social Homework: portion of exams
• “GLUE”
Laboratory: Authentic STEM
Social Homework Groups Design Experiments
“Tracker” used to perform measurements
Experiments independently verified / groups
Groups decide / construct their own meaning
Ph.D. – level scientist required to judge
Time vs. Velocity: 30 cm track
2.00E+02
Velocity (cm/s)
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1.50E+02
1.00E+02
5.00E+01
0.00E+00
1.00E+00
1.20E+00
1.40E+00
1.60E+00
Time (s)
Online Laboratory
• 3-week cycle:
– Propose experiment (in group), RFP
– Experiment performed
– Results confirmed
• Requires a Professor – by design
• 60 seats so far, 100 in Spring 2015
• Three sections worth of capacity relieved (24
lab sections now, M-F 7am-10pm)
CSU CO Redesign Project
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“Social Homework” is a “Proven Practice”
Fall 2014, redesign courses to use tool
Run course with Koondis in Spring
3 units (at replacement rate, or $$$)
Department chairs will approve “RFP”.
This year, CO pays all student fees ($35 /
student) … ANYONE in CSU who adopts.
Conclusion
• Social Homework: MOOC Glue
• Social Homework: Experiment as Social
Activity
• Students depend on each other
• CourseCraft: positive
interdependence
Gerry Hanley, Asst. Chancellor