1. Quick ALPhA update New website design: www.advlab.org
New way to connect with your BFY/ALPhA friends: Regions

2. 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

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

4. 3D curriculum/course development

5. Why care now about 3D curriculum development?

6. 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?

7. 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

8. 1) Start with the goals

9. 2) List the practices

10. 2) List the practices

11. 2) List the practices

12. 3) Make changes by adding practices

13. 3) Make changes by adding practices

14. 3) Make changes by listing alternatives

15. 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

16. 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

17. 3D experiment development

18. 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

19. 1) Brownian motion

20. 2) Imaging DNA with AFM

21. 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

22. “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

23. 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?

24. 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

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

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