As students return to campus, it is important to reflect on what we have learnt from online teaching during and prior to the pandemic and consider which parts of our courses should continue online. Online learning offers many advantages to students: it can be highly flexible, allows for automated and personalised feedback that helps them master the material, and it can be polished and professional. There are, however, disadvantages: it is harder for students to build relationships with their peers online, it can be lonely, and it can be easy to get behind when classes are not timetabled.
In this seminar, Associate Professor Elizabeth Angstmann will outline how she has leveraged the advantages of online teaching to improve the student experience in her first year physics courses. She will demonstrate how to use the quiz tool to make interactive online lectures, labs, and assessments, and will share her research results about student learning success and emotional engagement in online and face-to-face contexts. The seminar will conclude with insight into how first year physics courses will run next year based on these results and the necessary reasons for changing the assessment structure to pass/fail grading with hurdle tasks.
About the Speakers
Elizabeth Angstmann is an Associate Professor and First Year Director in the School of Physics at UNSW. Liz obtained her PhD in theoretical atomic physics before deciding to focus on teaching. She has made significant changes to first year physics courses at UNSW through the development of online and face-to-face materials and experiences for students that encourage active learning and problem solving. Liz also created an online Graduate Certificate in Physics for Science Teachers. Liz is the current Chair of the Physics Education Group of the Australian Institute of Physics. Her work has been recognised through the award of an Australian Award for University Teaching citation in 2018 and the prestigious Australian Institute of Physics Education Medal in 2020.
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This event is a part of the Connections series, consisting of seminars and workshops that provide you with the opportunity to learn from your colleagues to inform your own teaching practice. This year, Connections will align with the Educational & Student Experience themes of “Listening, Challenging, Supporting”.