Dear PEG member,

we are pleased to bring you a new edition of our newsletter. 

Lecturer - Education focused position at UNSW

ACSME conference and PEG Discipline Day 2019

Last year's ACSME meeting celebrated 25th anniversary and was held in Sydney, October 2-3 2019, jointly by The University of Sydney and the University of Technology Sydney. To read more about a brief history of ACMSE, see here. To see conference proceedings, see here. 

The main theme was the student experience, and we heard powerful presentations from many experts and students themselves. For summary report, see here.  


We would like to congratulate Les Kirkup for receiving Lifetime Achieving award at the ACSME 2019! 

The PEG discipline day was held on October 4th, 9am-12noon, and was focused on online teaching and learning. We had two presentations from our chair and deputy chair, Jasmina Lazendic-Galloway and Elizabeth Angstmann, about their experience with online teaching.


PEG group at the Discipline day at ACSME 2019. 

Our group discussion evolved around what impediments instructors encounter and what reservations they might have to engage with online teaching, how institutions calculate workloads for online teaching and what steps people take to avoid contract cheating in the online environment. In the last part of the session, Petr Lebedev gave us a crash-course in what we need for an effective video making. 



We can see that there is much interest among physics educators to move to online teaching, either completely or as a blended model, and that there is a need for a forum to share experiences, resources and provide support. We will be working on this and we'll share with you any development. 

PEG State representatives chosen

PEG state representatives have been chosen at the PEG business meeting during the Discipline day:

ACT:  John Debs, john.debs@anu.edu.au
NSW: Christine Lindstrom, c.lindstrom@unsw.edu.au
SA:     Maria Parappilly, maria.parappilly@flinders.edu.au
VIC:    Jacinta den Besten, jacinta.den@unimelb.edu.au
QLD:   Margaret Wegener, m.wegener@uq.edu.au

We don't have any representatives for Tasmania or WA, so please get in touch with us if you are interested. 

AIP Summer meeting 2019 report

At the AIP Summer meeting 2019 we had two sessions stretched over two days, with two invited talks.


Joanna Turner from University of Southern Queensland gave a talk how to use ultraviolet radiation, art and science for outreach and education by using the cyanotype. If you're interested to know more, see https://uveducation.usq.edu.au.


Maria Parapilly presented her project STEM Enrichment: A Program to Enhance Year Nine Students’ Interest in Physics, which has increased an interest of female high-school students towards physics and related careers. For more information see https://www.flinders.edu.au/study/schools-teachers/stem-enrichment-academy.


The PEG sessions were very well attended. We heard from other speakers about the need to make more engaging hands-on labs, how to motivate students to practice more, how to create online training for teachers, how to design lab report to encourage self-regulated learning, and why it's important to understand scale sizes of astronomical objects. To learn more, see here.  
 
The PEG dinner was held on 4th of Dec, and the PEG business was held on 5th Dec after morning tea time. We would like to thank Dr Gail Illes and the organizing committee for their help.

Three happy conference chairs: Jasmina, Gail and Maria.  

ICPE Newsletter issue 70 

Physics Educator awarded Order of Australia

We are delighted to share that our previous Chair, Assoc. Prof. Maria Parappily has been awarded Order of Australia - congratulations Maria!

Experimental methods for Science

Experimentation is at the heart of physics and an updated book from Les Kirkup on experimental methods is an excellent resource for teaching or learning physics!
 



From the publisher:
Responding to the developments of the past twenty years, Les Kirkup has thoroughly updated his popular book on experimental methods, while retaining the extensive coverage and practical advice from the first edition. Many topics from that edition remain, including keeping a record of work, how to deal with measurement uncertainties, understanding the statistical basis of data analysis and reporting the results of experiments. However, with new technologies influencing how experiments are devised, carried out, analyzed, presented and reported, this new edition reflects the digital changes which have taken place and the increased emphasis on the importance of communication skills in reporting results. Bringing together key elements of experimental methods into one coherent book, it is perfect for students seeking guidance with their experimental work, including how to acquire, analyse and present data. Exercises, worked examples and end-of-chapter problems are provided throughout the book to reinforce fundamental principles.

Contact us

Chair: Jasmina Lazendic-Galloway (Monash)
Deputy Chair: Elizabeth Angstmann (UNSW)
National advisor: Manjula Sharma (U Sydney)
Young Physics Educator: Petr Lebedev (U Sydney)