arXiv subjects

Emily Alicea-Muñoz

Publications and source records attributed to Emily Alicea-Muñoz.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

Reflecting to learn in a physics multimedia communication course

Science communication skills are considered essential learning objectives for undergraduate physics students. However, high enrollment and limited class resources present significant barriers to providing students ample opportunities to practice their formal presentation skills. We investigate the use of integrated critical reflection and peer evaluation activities in a physics senior seminar course both to improve student learning outcomes and to supplement highly restricted presentation time. Throughout the semester, each student delivers one 8-min multimedia presentation on either their research or an upper-division course topic. Following each presentation, audience members complete one of two randomly assigned peer evaluations: a treatment form that prompts critical reflection or a control form that does not. Each class period concludes with a short quiz on concepts presented in that day's presentations. We observe minimal differences in quiz scores between students in the control and treatment groups. Instead, we find that retention and transfer of presentation content correlate with certain metrics of presentation quality described in the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning and with self-identified prior exposure to presentation topics.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2023

A robophysical model of spacetime dynamics

Systems consisting of spheres rolling on elastic membranes have been used to introduce a core conceptual idea of General Relativity (GR): how curvature guides the movement of matter. However, such schemes cannot accurately represent relativistic dynamics in the laboratory because of the dominance of dissipation and external gravitational fields. Here we demonstrate that an ``active" object (a wheeled robot), which moves in a straight line on level ground and can alter its speed depending on the curvature of the deformable terrain it moves on, can exactly capture dynamics in curved relativistic spacetimes. Via the systematic study of the robot's dynamics in the radial and orbital directions, we develop a mapping of the emergent trajectories of a wheeled vehicle on a spandex membrane to the motion in a curved spacetime. Our mapping demonstrates how the driven robot's dynamics mix space and time in a metric, and shows how active particles do not necessarily follow geodesics in the real space but instead follow geodesics in a fiducial spacetime. The mapping further reveals how parameters such as the membrane elasticity and instantaneous speed allow the programming of a desired spacetime, such as the Schwarzschild metric near a non-rotating blackhole. Our mapping and framework facilitate creation of a robophysical analog to a general relativistic system in the laboratory at low cost that can provide insights into active matter in deformable environments and robot exploration in complex landscapes.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2021

Transforming the Preparation of Physics GTAs: Curriculum Development

Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) are key partners in the education of undergraduates. Given the potentially large impact GTAs can have on undergraduate student learning, it is important to provide them with appropriate preparation for teaching. But GTAs are students themselves, and not all of them desire to pursue an academic career. Fully integrating GTA preparation into the professional development of graduate students lowers the barrier to engagement so that all graduate students may benefit from the opportunity to explore teaching and its applications to many potential career paths. In this paper we describe the design and implementation of a GTA Preparation course for first-year Ph.D. students at the Georgia Tech School of Physics. Through a yearly cycle of implementation and revision, guided by the 3P Framework we developed (Pedagogy, Physics, Professional Development), the course has evolved into a robust and comprehensive professional development program that is well-received by physics graduate students.

physics.ed-ph↗

arXiv2018

Assessing a GTA professional development program

For the last four years, the School of Physics at Georgia Tech have been preparing new Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) through a program that integrates pedagogy, physics content, and professional development strategies. Here we discuss various assessments we have used to evaluate the program, among them surveys, GTA self-reporting, and end-of-semester student evaluations. Our results indicate that GTAs who participate in the program find its practical activities useful, feel better prepared for teaching, make use of learner-centered teaching strategies, and receive higher scores in teaching evaluations.

physics.ed-ph↗