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Ashley Carter, Amherst College Case Study on How to Develop 3D Labs with Theoretical, Experimental, and Computational Goals C E T Ashley Carter, Amherst College

Outline Updating curriculum/course for 3D labs Updating experiments for 3D labs

3D curriculum/course development

Why care now about 3D curriculum development?

How does my department develop labs? How do we overcome challenges? Challenge – Department wants to have consensus on all decisions Challenge – Instructors want to have autonomy in courses Challenge – Instructors are busy Other Challenges Uncooperative faculty?

Lab development for dummies 1) Get everyone on board by starting with goals for curriculum/course 2) Build cohesion by writing down current practices 3) Make changes by adding new practices and identifying alternates 4) Make future updates possible by adding assessment

1) Start with the goals

2) List the practices

2) List the practices

2) List the practices

3) Make changes by adding practices

3) Make changes by adding practices

3) Make changes by listing alternatives

4) Build in assessment E-CLASS survey, lab final exam, lab practicals, interviews, assignment grades Course evaluations designed by instructional designer List time spent on each goal Rank progress on each goal Reflect on progress

Lab development for dummies 1) Get everyone on board by starting with goals for curriculum/course 2) Build cohesion by writing down current practices 3) Make changes by adding new practices and identifying alternates 4) Make future updates possible by adding assessment

3D experiment development

3D experiments: are research projects the answer? Pros to research projects Instructors don’t have to develop labs, they just have to help choose doable projects Exposure to modern physics with some novel aspect Mixes theoretical, experimental, and computational goals = rich experience Cons to research projects Too difficult and time consuming for students – need scaffolding Hard to develop them - need really savvy instructors C E T eSean Robinson – MIT only one semester of advanced lab and then all do research Chad Hoyt – want to get them as close to research as possible Solution = use training modules from research labs

1) Brownian motion

2) Imaging DNA with AFM

3D experiments: how do you add them? Option 1 = Lone instructor slaves away in the lab – not enough time Option 2 = Form departmental task force – hard to form Option 3 = Have “global repository” of experiments– not tailored enhisecure Solution = use global repository but reorganize entries to make plug and play

“Plug and play” experiments Experiments can be “plugged in” to many different courses Experiments are then “played” in multiple different ways in those courses enhisecure

Need reorganization for “plug and play” Organized by Concept Organized by Goals/Lab Portion Measure mean squared displacement vs. time for single particle, is it linear? Calculate the average diffusion coefficient for multiple particles, does it agree with the theoretical prediction? Measure the Boltzmann constant and calculate the uncertainty, does the value agree with the published value? Prelab (Computation – Model data) Use a random number generator to simulate a random walk for 10 particles. Then plot the MSD vs. time for the 10 particles. Given this simulation, how much variation should we expect for the MSD vs. time traces? Prelab (Experiment – Data analysis) Attached is data from 10 particle tracks. Plot the MSD vs. time traces for each particle. Then, find the average MSD vs. time trace. Make a figure that presents this data. Prelab (Experiment – Design) If we want to measure particles in water undergoing Brownian motion, then we don’t want any forces. Fluid flow is a force that might be present in our sample. How might we design the sample chamber to minimize flow?

Things to think about Course/curriculum development: What are the goals, practices, changes, and assessments for your department? 3-4 one hour meetings – you can do it! Experiment development: The best 3D experiments are training modules for research rather than the research itself Need national repository of 3D plug and play experiments that are organized by goal/lab portion rather than by concept

Acknowledgements The Carter Lab Funding Sources RCSA Cottrell 2015, NSF CAREER Grant 2017

4) Build in assessment E-CLASS survey, lab final exam, lab practicals, interviews, assignment grades Course evaluations designed by instructional designer