New k-12 core standards in science and new AP physics curriculum
Gary Baier Green Bay East High School garybaier@att.net
https://download.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13165
http://www.achieve.org/
http://www7.nationalacademies.org/bose/Standards_Framework_Homepage.html
http://www.compadre.org/psrc/items/detail.cfm?ID=10310

YouTubeNation: Using student-made videos as an assessment tool
Matthew Vonk UWRF
This semester in my electronics class Iím trying something new. Iíve ditched tests, written lab-reports, and even the final exam. Instead Iím having my students make short videos about the theoretical and practical aspects of the circuits that theyíve made. In this talk, Iíll present a status report of the project along with some practical tips.
An student introduces himself at the beginning of the semester: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqaTv6W5Fak
Automated Data Collection with a National Instrument’s DAQ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qeze4mYbbw
Two hucksters try to sell an oscilloscope by playing on men’s dating insecurities: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp4seoEQrO0

Alternative Energy Experiment and Equipment
Roger Hanke NorthCentral Technical College - Retired
PowerPoint

Steaming Physics Colloquia from the University of Wisconsin - Madison, Physics Department.
Steve Narf University of Wisconsin-Madison, Physics Department
http://www.physics.wisc.edu/seminars/index.html
The main colloquia list of videos that are in line. http://www.physics.wisc.edu/vod/

Resonance: Let's Break Some Glass!
Steve Narf University of Wisconsin-Madison, Physics Department Steve is willing to discuss the demos on his pages! Contact him with questions srnarf@wisc.edu
An old time favorite in resonance demonstrations is being able to demonstrate how sound breaks a wineglass. Weíll take a look at how one can make such a demonstration and what equipment is being used.
My demonstration database: ( It is and will be under construction for sometime.) http://www.physics.wisc.edu/facultywiki/Demonstrations
The Breaking Glass Page. http://www.physics.wisc.edu/facultywiki/BreakingGlass
The Ingrersoll Museum; The other thing I manage. http://www.physics.wisc.edu/museum/

A collaborative variable star observing project for introductory astronomy
Carey Woodward University of Wisconsin--Fond du Lac
Like many astronomy teachers, I prefer that my students do at least some actual observationsópreferably of a target that changes over timeóeven in non-laboratory introductory classes. In solar system astronomy, there are several possibilities involving tracking the motion of the Sun, the Moon, or one of the other planets. In stellar astronomy, however, not much changes on the timescale of a semester, and one thus is generally restricted to static sky sketches or plotting the overall diurnal motion of the stars. However, not all stars are constant, and two years ago I decided to try a class project based on a variable star: students individually observed and estimated the magnitude of a particular variable star several times during the semester; at the end of the semester I pooled their observations, and students then had to deduce the period and type of the variable star from the class data. Actual study of a variable star requires many more observations than is practical for a non-major student in an introductory course, but I hoped that the pooling of the class data would create a dense enough data set. The first year was a learning experience for me as much as for the students, but after I made several revisions, the second (and most recent) year was much more satisfactory, with most students correctly deducing the starís type, and several obtaining reasonable values for the period.
http://www.thewoodwards.net/rcwj/WAPT11/

Modeling the Changes in Student Understanding
Thomas Scaife University of Wisconsin - Platteville
http://www.uwplatt.edu/~scaifet/posters_talks/poster_best_practice.pdf

ALPhA's 'Laboratory Instruction Beyond the First Year' Conference
Lowell McCann UW-River Falls
I will discuss the upcoming ALPhA Conference on Laboratory Instruction Beyond the First Year of College. This talk will also include a brief update on some other activities of ALPhA, including the successful Immersions program and the recent single photon detector initiative.
http://www.advlab.org

What's Going on with those Neutrinos?
Jim Madsen UWRF
I will give an overview of some of the recent results from the IceCube Collaboration and talk about the speed mesurements made by the OPERA Collaboration.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1110.6408

Snakes and Arrows: Vectors and Wave Propagation
Larry Stookey Antigo High School
We demonstrate the propagation of a longitudinal wave in an elastic medium from a transverse wave at 90?, and the propagation of a transverse wave from a longitudinal wave at 90?.

Teaching Physics in China
Steven Sahyun UW-Whitewater
I will have the opportunity to teach a physics course at Hebei Normal University in China during the Spring 2012 semester. This talk will describe preparations for the semester abroad.



Using Online Homework Data to Assess Student Confidence
Andrew Pawl UW-Platteville
A popular type of question in online homework involves a set of several true/false statements where students must submit their answer to all the statements at once. This discourages random guessing because although one true/false statement has only two possible answers, a question containing N such statements has two raised to the Nth power possible answers. We have studied student response patterns to a number of these questions with the goal of determining which of the individual true/false statements exhibit a large proportion of response switches (i.e. from true to false or from false to true) and which statements exhibit largely consistent responses. The tendency of students to change their answer to a statement or to remain consistent is one indication of student confidence in the knowledge tested.

Free-Response Administration of a Mechanics Reasoning Inventory
Andrew Pawl UW-Platteville
Strategic knowledge is required to appropriately organize procedures and concepts to solve problems. We are developing a standardized instrument assessing strategic knowledge in the domain of introductory mechanics. This instrument is inspired in part by Lawsonís Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning and Van Domelenís Problem Decomposition Diagnostic. The predictive validity of the instrument has been suggested by preliminary studies showing significant correlation with performance on final exams administered in introductory mechanics courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Georgia Institute of Technology. In order to study the validity of the content from the studentís perspective, we have administered the instrument in free-response format to 40 students enrolled in calculus-based introductory mechanics at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. This procedure has the additional advantage of improving the construct validity of the inventory, since student responses suggest effective distractors for the multiple-choice form of the inventory.

Assessment of Studio Physics at University of Wisconsin ñ Platteville
Phil Young UW-Platteville
In Spring 2009 the introductory physics classes at University of Wisconsin ñ Platteville moved into studio classrooms. The department began administering the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) to the calculus-based Physics I classes prior to the transition and has continued through 5 semesters in the new classrooms. I will present the results of that assessment.

Physics Modeling for Game Programmers
Alan Scott University of Wisconsin-Stout
I taught a brand new course at the University of Wisconsin-Stout last spring called "Physics Modeling for Game Programmers". (This may have been one of the first such courses in the nation.) It is a required, upper-level physics course for the new Game Design and Development major . It covered topics in sports, motor racing, boat racing, aircraft simulations, ballistics, missiles, rockets, and military applications of physics principles. This presentation will reflect a little on this course and describe some important skills needed in physics for future game programmers.



Electron Mobility in Silicon:Surprising Facts and Determination of Temperature Dependence
Jim Mallmann Milwaukee School of Engineering
The mobilities of the current-carrying free charges in transistors influence switching speeds, the operating temperatures, and the rate of battery drain for laptop computers and other portable electronic devices. After a brief discussion of the scattering of electrons, I will describe a simple, inexpensive experiment to determine how the mobility of free electrons in lightly doped n-type silicon depends on temperature.

A simple astronomy lab: measuring distances using parallax and very simple tools.
Seth Ashman Univ. of Wisconsin - Stevens Point
I will present some details about an introductory astronomy lab I developed this semester. Students use simple tools (protractor, string, meter stick) to measure an angle related to the parallax angle, and the baseline distance separating the two points from which they make their observations. Based on these measurements, the distance to the object is calculated. This measurement is compared to a direct measurement of the distance, and connections to stellar parallax measurements are made.

For or Against: the benefits of instructional examples that align with students' pre-existing ideas
Thomas Scaife University of Wisconsin - Platteville

Seeking the Period of a Cepheid Variable: A Lab Exercise for Introductory Astronomy
David Tamres UW-Stevens Point
In this lab exercise, students use a spreadsheet to "slice and stack" the observational data for a particular Cepheid variable star. This allows them, with a little patience, to converge on the period of the star's brightness variation.

Building a Tabletop Demo to Model the Induced Magnetic Field of Europa
Erik Hendrickson UW - Eau Claire
I have worked with several students over the past few years to try to build a tabletop device to model the induced magnetic field that the Galileo spacecraft has recently detected eminating from Europa (a moon of Jupiter). The twists and turns of the project will be described, as well as where we hope this interesting project will eventually lead us.

SySTEMically Improving Student Academic Achievement in Mathematics and Science: 2011 Summer Academy
Mike LeDocq Western Technical College
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Livescribe: An alternative to scanning
Matt Evans UW - Eau Claire
New technologies are making some teaching techniques easier to implement. Livescribe, a lecture capture tool, can be used in useful ways to ease some basic tasks of educators.