My Guidelines for a Remote Environment:
Since I have had a bit more time than my colleagues did to prep for this interesting world of teaching and learning in a remote (as opposed to online) environment I have been overthinking things a lot in an effort to find a model that works. To help keep myself on some consistent track and to document the evolving process it seems useful to write my thoughts and plans down and update the document regularly. Here goes nothing.....
6/10/2020 Beta version
I generally think of my classes as having 5 broad types of learning taking place. At the moment I would call them physics content, collateral content, problem solving development, physics (science) in practice (lab), and technical communication. In a traditional class all of these overlap in alarming and unclear ways in the different components of the class. In the act of writing this down I am finding myself noticing and re-evaluating how these learning activities are embedded in the different parts of my traditional class structure (which I hope is not a classic talking head model!)
On the public website for my classes I have structured the learning materials around the traditional threads of classroom material (documented in the Breadcrumbs), homework, labs, and skills/assessment. Here is how I am thinking about each of those threads.
The Breadcrumbs were originally my notes to myself to help make sure I had all the web resources linked for class discussion. On another level the Breadcrumbs function as a personalized textbook for this course (since I don't require one). In my experience students have realized that in a face to face class I tend to go over the high points of the Breadcrumbs in class and so it hasn't been critical to read them in advance. In this remote model time will be more limited during class meetings (zoom or whatever). I need to be identify where I intend to insert activities or example problems into the Breadcrumbs during class meetings. If we are meeting for a 60 - 90 minutes there should probably be no more than 5 indicated activities. For these activities to be most helpful I shouldn't give answers to the activities in the Breadcrumbs but what to do about students who miss class for whatever reason? This is unclear to me.
For me, reading is a more efficient use of my time than video. I can easily skip back to verify an idea or check a value. It is my intention to only use video to demonstrate problem solving strategies or illustrate particular points that are easier to see than to describe. A challenge for me to be conscious of is that almost any video I have made so far to illustrate some point is 10 min long or longer. How much time do I expect students to spend reading ahead on the Breadcrumbs, watching the videos, and doing some pre-class problem? It feels like I'm creating an expectation of 90 min of prep for a 60-90 min class. That's in line with the idea of 60 min of reading a text before 120 min of class but the reality is students don't do that so how do I create an incentive to do so now? This is the root of the conundrum for me.
In the context of my expressed learning goals for all my classes it seems prudent to indicate clearly in the Breadcrumbs what is physics content, what is collateral content (usually math), and what is problem solving development. These three feel like the primary learning modes for the class portion of a course.
On one level it might seem that homework could remain unchanged in a remote learning environment. Based on student feedback any graded materials are, at least at the moment, being graded and returned to the students much more slowly than in traditional class structures. Because students are not as able to work together it is more difficult for them to learn from each others strategies to stengthen or redirect their own strategies.
While it might result in slightly less breadth of practice I am going to initially take the approach that a few homework style problems repetitively practiced will add more value than trying to continue with my past practice of 10ish problems ranging from straightforward to more context rich. My existing problem sets lead toconsistent student questons on the last 4-5 every week.
Another important bit of feedback from students is that the traditional practice of 1 large HW each week where students often leave it to the last night before the due date is even more problematic in a remote environment. What seems to be much more helpful is a few (2-3) problems due before the next class meeting to push students to stay current. This is not well aligned with my normal practice but is clearly a student centered change I need to make.
So here is my plan:
Define one calculational or descriptive problem based on the next class reading that must be completed in Bb before that class meeting. Define 2-3 HW style problems that must be completed before the next class meeting. IF I can pull it off my plan is to create a python notebook for each HW problem that randomly changes the relevant variables. When the students have practiced with the notebook until they are confident they understand how to do the problem they can take the Bb version of the problem once (pass/no pass). Perhaps this will close the HW feedback loop faster since the hope would be that everyone will pass the Bb quiz having practiced with the notebook.
In any fixed assessment where the answer can be known there is the possibility that students will merely share the answer and defeat the process. I am going to take the view that if students choose to undermine their learning in this way it's not my primary problem. Hopefully the assessment strategy will reveal any such learning defects.
The labs for PH212 have, in the past, been exploratory labs built around learning the thermal transport effects that take place in a refrigerator. I only had a couple examples of each component and executed the labs by having students work their way through multiple stations. None of that is really possible for remote labs so they will need to be redesigned with an eye to approaching the content in new ways.
So here is my lab plan:
I have asked students to purchase a basic Arduino starter kit (roughly $40) to help support the development of these new labs. This kit will typically have an Arduino (usually an Uno but sometimes an ATMega variety) board along with a protoboard, various LED's and resistors, a 9V battery power cord, USB cable for programming and powering, jumper wire, and a modest variety of sensors (3 or 4). I will provide additinoal sensors and items to support the use of the Arduino as needed. Part of my motivation is that basic electric circuits are a part of the content for PH212 and Arduino projects have the potential to provide hands on learning of basic circuit concepts in a natural way. The sequencing of the content in the class may need to be a little re-examination to support this.
First Step:
I feel like the first step is to get the Arduino up and running and taking data. Once students have some basic experience with coding the Arduino (we'll see if the python experience helps relative to previous classes) and acquiring data from a couple of sensors I then plan to guide them to turning their Arduino into a remote data logger powering the Arduino from a 9V battery while storing data gathered from sensor(s) on an SD card. I will provide the micro SD card reader and the micro SD card (<$10 total). Once they have a portable data logger they can then use this to make relevant measurements of water cooling in a container, the temperature profile of a refrigerator through a day, the brightness and distribution of light (radiation) from a source.
Next Steps:
Once the students can gather data with their personal logger then we can plot it and model it in python notebooks. At this time it seems hopeful that one might be able to apply this data to understanding various thermal properties and transport issues around their home. The temperature profile inside their car on a sunny day is a reasonable example. The labs would be constructed in parallel with python notebooks (available via a github repository) for the lab deliverables as was done in PH211.
Anticipated Challenges:
One challenge I anticipate is about students who join PH212 NOT having had PH211 with me. Because our independent sections are driven by the particular faculty and their methodology for meeting the common outcomes students coming from other institutions or classes may have significantly less skill (or none) with the python and coding tools the rest of the students developed. For the time being I will push those students to play rapid catch up for the first couple of weeks of the term.
Another challenge I am anticipating is the difficulty introduces by remote teaching tools and the need to troubleshoot circuits. This may be very irritating but at the same time it will create an object need for clear and effective circuit construction in ways that students have been able to avoid in the past. Unintended benefit?
Assessment:
...not clear...
Keeping Track:
For me a challenge for this remote structure is keeping track of all the interrelated bits. This is partly the sequencing to be sure the daily HW problems match the content we have already discussed collectively. I also need to look ahead and be sure I have framed a reading question or test that makes sense. In addition there is the core desire to build integration skills along the way. All of these materials exist on the public webpage and then must be implemented on Bb to provide a place to submit each problem or activity digitally (not an issue in a F2F class). I also need to make more explicit decisions about what activities I will do 'in class' along with which videos of process or demonstration I need create to have the necessary resources to keep(get?) students engaged in the thinking I want them to do. Normally I can do this pretty efficiently because I can adapt how much time I'm spending on an activity on the fly. I think what I need to do is build the Bb materials based on the 'Before Next Class' activities at the end of each Breadcrumb. That might minimize all the scraps of paper flying around here...
Self Reflection:
9/3/20
Well, it has certainly been an interesting term. All in all the best that can be said is we all made it through. The effort involved in porting my teaching style into a remote modality has been ridiculous. My sense of effectiveness has dropped and the challenge for most students to keep up has gone up. In an effort to be clearer about what needed to be turned in and to close the feedback loop quicky I ended up with a gradebook that had twice as many elements in it as in the past and the effort didn't balance well with the grade policy as articulated. On some scale I would give myself a grade of C+/B-. I will definitely need to step back and rethink which is not a bad thing but there is a lot of extra effort going into just getting materials available for the students that there isn't much time left to structurally redesign my courses.
Notes to Self:
1: Use breakout rooms more and more effectively.
2: Aim for demonstrated competency which means spending more time figuring out what that actually looks like.
3: I'm using zoom time like a video lecture and it's not helpful. I haven't got a method to embed the discussive aspects of the way I teach f2f into my web materials. Short videos? Do I kick them to breakout rooms and ask them to drop answers into a Bb discussion folder?
4: Can I learn to build polls in real time? They are useless if I have to plan ahead since the questions evolve differently than expected always.
