The Science of Learning in Physics and Astronomy — PHYS 3500
Course Details for Fall 2026
University of North Georgia’s College of Science & Mathematics
Department of Physics & Astronomy
Course Instructor
| Dr. Sarah Formica (she/her) | email: sarah.formica@ung.edu |
| Office: Rogers 116A | Hours: MW 1:00-3:00 PM |
| Virtual Office: Zoom link | Hours: T/F (by appointment) |
Office Hours
How to Book a Meeting
Respect for Diversity
I recognize that there is a vast untapped intellectual resource in all groups underrepresented in physics. For this reason, I am committed to making physics more accessible to everyone. It is my intent that students from all diverse backgrounds and perspectives be well served by this course, that students’ learning needs be addressed both in and out of class, and that the diversity that students bring to this class be viewed as a resource, strength, and benefit.
It is my intent to present materials and activities that are respectful of diversity: gender, sexuality, ability, age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, race, and culture. The structure of this course — collaborative group work, ungrading, and multiple modes of demonstrating learning — is designed in part to reduce barriers that traditional lab courses can create for students from underrepresented groups.
Physics belongs to everyone. The scientists who will build public trust in science, communicate honestly across communities, and solve the problems ahead of us will come from all backgrounds. This course is designed with that in mind.
Your suggestions are encouraged and appreciated. Please let me know ways to improve the effectiveness of the course for you personally or for other students or student groups.
Course Catalog Description
The course is designed for students serving as Learning Assistants in the Department of Physics & Astronomy and who are interested in the science behind learning in physics and astronomy. This course will help students integrate educational theory, pedagogy, and practice. It will touch on theoretical issues in conceptual development, conceptual change, collaborative learning, and students’ conceptions of various topics in physics and astronomy, as well as practical issues encountered in facilitating learning, engaging in formative assessment, and responsive teaching. This is a seminar course where students are responsible for weekly readings, in-class discussions, reflections and projects which are coordinated with students’ Learning Assistant field experiences. (2 credit hours)
Learning Objectives
This course is designed to support you as a new LA working with students. You’ll build your knowledge of how people learn, foster community and relationships within our class and with your students, and develop the practice of listening to, questioning, and responding to student ideas. You’ll also build strategies for designing equitable, effective learning activities and environments and for engaging students in productive group work.
By the end of this course, you will be able to:
- Apply core concepts from the science of learning to the undergraduate physics/astronomy classroom
- Practice formative assessment — listening to your students, interpreting their ideas, and responding to address them
- Design and facilitate equitable, effective, collaborative learning activities
- Build community and relationships with your students, peers, and faculty
- Reflect on your own teaching practice and connect classroom experience to education theory
To meet these outcomes, you’ll try out a variety of teaching strategies in your learning team, revise them based on experience, and analyze samples of student work to uncover students’ prior and intuitive ideas in physics and astronomy. You’ll make connections between your classroom experience and education theory and literature, discuss your role and experiences with students and faculty, and reflect on and develop your own views on teaching and learning — including a growing awareness of your students’ intellectual, social, and cultural diversity and how it shapes your instruction.
Weekly Assignments
Class Readings, Discussion and Participation: You are expected to contribute to class discussions, lead one or two class reading discussions, and come prepared each week with
- a provocative question
- something interesting you found in the article
- something you are confused about
The purpose of these discussions is to help all of us as individuals, and as a group, develop meaningful interpretations of the ideas found in the readings and to make connections to teaching experiences. You are expected to attend every class session and participate in the discussions and activities each week.
Weekly Teaching Reflections: You are expected to spend 3–6 hours per week working with undergraduate physics or astronomy students in collaborative, learner-centered environments. Using this experience as a guide, you will submit a teaching reflection electronically in D2L each week.
Training Sessions with Lead Faculty: Each week, you are responsible for meeting with the physics/astronomy course lead faculty member(s) and the other Learning Assistants in the department to plan and reflect on instruction and to discuss student achievement. You cannot pass this course if you fail to meet with your Lead Instructor each week (with allowances for necessary absences).
Semester-Long Projects – Choose ONE OPTION from below:
Educational Research and Instructional Interventions: This semester-long assignment is designed to help you apply what you are learning from the readings, discussions, and experiences working with students. You may choose to work individually or with a small team (2-3 people), and you will receive periodic written and verbal feedback from your pedagogy instructor throughout the semester.
1. Intervention/Tutorial to Help with Student Difficulties: You will design an instructional intervention that can help students work through a specific difficulty that you have observed. The product of this assignment will be something like a tutorial session, a recitation activity (or sequence of activities), a YouTube video, or some other media that can help students work through a difficulty you have noticed to be particularly common among students within a particular subject or concept. You will document your ideas in a project portfolio and you will receive periodic written and verbal feedback from your pedagogy instructor throughout the semester. You should also meet with the Lead Instructor of the course to trouble shoot and share/develop ideas. The product of this work will be a poster presentation that describes the questions, process, and outcomes of your semester-long project.
2. Insights into Student Ideas and Thinking or Classroom Contexts – Interviews: You will investigate student ideas about a concept of your choosing by conducting student interviews. You may work alone or in a small team (2-3 people) to identify the concept of interest, develop interview questions, conduct interviews, and analyze the results. You will document your ideas in a project portfolio and you will receive periodic written and verbal feedback from your pedagogy instructor throughout the semester. The product of this work will be a poster presentation that describes the questions, process, and outcomes of your semester-long project.
3. Insights into Student Ideas and Thinking or Classroom Contexts – Student Work: In this project, you will analyze student written work, such as homework or exams, to investigate their ideas or problem-solving strategies related to a conceptual area of interest. You will collect and photocopy / scan samples of student work a few times throughout the semester (removing names to protect their identity). You may choose to analyze more work over time from a small group of the same students, finding how their ideas develop over the semester. Or you may choose to collect a larger set of work from the class focused on one or two points in the semester to analyze the breadth of students ideas represented. You will document your ideas in a project portfolio and you will receive periodic written and verbal feedback from your pedagogy instructor throughout the semester. The product of this work will be a poster presentation that describes the questions, process, and outcomes of your semester-long project.
4. Insights into Student Ideas and Thinking or Classroom Contexts – Observations: For this project, you will collect field notes from observations of small groups of students working together in order to analyze their ideas and/or problem-solving strategies. For instance, you might choose to sit among a group of students as they work through an entire tutorial session. You will need to develop a way to collect detailed observation notes and you will analyze data from observations of several groups of students. You will document your ideas in a project portfolio and you will receive periodic written and verbal feedback from your pedagogy instructor throughout the semester. The product of this work will be a poster presentation that describes the questions, process, and outcomes of your semester-long project.
5. Personal Developments of Your Beliefs about Teaching and Learning: You will develop a presentation that describes changes or the development of your beliefs about student learning and teaching. You will need to discuss what you thought initially about some aspect of teaching and learning, what you think now, and what specific experiences or readings led to your development. You will document your ideas in a project portfolio and you will receive periodic written and verbal feedback from your pedagogy instructor throughout the semester. The product of this work will be a poster presentation that describes the questions, process, and outcomes of your semester-long project.
Poster Presentation
You will develop a poster presentation that describes the questions, process, and outcomes of your semester-long project. This poster will first describe the difficulty or the research question you were trying to address, the methods and learning theory you used to address these difficulties and or research questions and your instructional product or research findings from this project. Finally, you will discuss
the relevance to physics or astronomy and to teaching and learning.
You will present your poster in a poster session scheduled for the last week of classes. The audience will be comprised of your peers and faculty from the Department of Physics & Astronomy
(Un)Grading
The grading system in this course is likely very different from what you are used to. It is often called ungrading or going gradeless because it shifts the focus from letter grades to learning. Research shows that descriptive feedback — rather than grades or scores — leads to greater learning gains. Grades, by contrast, tend to reduce motivation, suppress creativity, promote competition over collaboration, and increase fear of failure. If you are interested, the article Teaching More by Grading Less (or Differently) offers a great overview of this research. These ideas are supported by scholars like Carol Dweck, whose book Mindset introduced the concept of growth mindset, and Daniel Pink, whose book Drive shows that extrinsic rewards and punishments often hinder creativity and deep thinking.
My goal is to foster a growth mindset and intrinsic motivation in all students.
Throughout the semester you will receive written and verbal feedback on your work. You will also have opportunities to assess your own work, respond to feedback, and revise your thinking — all of which has been shown to support deeper and more lasting learning.
Your final grade will be determined by the skills you develop, the learning objectives you demonstrate, and the honest appraisal you make of your own effort and progress. This course has five learning objectives. Your grade proposal should make the case — with specific evidence from your body of work — that you have met these objectives at the level you are proposing.
Final Course Grade
The grade proposal is submitted during the final week of the semester. It is a written document or presentation in which you:
- Identify which learning objectives you have met and at what level
- Point to specific evidence from your coursework
- Reflect honestly on where you struggled and what you learned from it
- Propose a final grade and explain why it is fair
You will be afforded the agency to evaluate and examine your own learning and suggest your grade in the course.
Use specific evidence from your coursework and LA experience to demonstrate — not just assert — that you have met each objective. Saying “I led group discussions every week” is not enough. Show me what you understand: describe a moment when you elicited a student’s thinking, walk through how you interpreted their idea and decided how to respond, or explain how a reading changed the way you approach your role. Reflect on what confused you and how your thinking changed. The goal is not to list what you did, but to show what you can do with what you learned.
Your instructor will review your proposal carefully and may respond with questions, feedback, or a counteroffer. A proposal that honestly acknowledges growth areas alongside strengths is more compelling than one that claims everything went perfectly.
Final Presentation Options
(Choose one)
We can meet via Zoom for a final exit interview during which you will present an organized presentation with evidence to support your proposed final grade. I will provide feedback on your assessment and discuss your grade suggestion with you. Together, we will work toward an agreed upon grade, though I reserve the right to veto a suggested grade. This presentation must be no longer than 20 minutes.
You can prepare and record a 20-minute video presentation with evidence to support your proposed final grade and submit this video presentation to D2L. I reserve the right to veto a suggested grade.
You can propose your final grade in a paper that provides evidence from your body of work throughout the semester for why you believe your suggested grade is fair. This paper has a page limit of 3 pages, single spaced, 12 point font, 1 inch margins. This paper will be submitted to D2L. I reserve the right to veto a suggested grade.
Academic Honesty and AI Use
The work you produce in this course should reflect your own thinking, effort, and understanding. Cheating, plagiarism, and misrepresentation — including copying others’ work or misusing AI tools — undermine your learning and the integrity of the community of educators you are joining as an LA. In a course built around honest, evidence-based reflection on your own growth, academic dishonesty is a particular contradiction.
I support the thoughtful use of AI tools as part of the learning process. Used well, AI can help you brainstorm, clarify your thinking, revise your writing, or explore ideas. But the key word is thoughtful. You are responsible for ensuring that your work reflects your own ideas and comprehension, that you acknowledge any AI assistance transparently, and that you do not use AI to replace your own thinking or bypass the intent of an assignment.
Transparent acknowledgment looks like this: a brief note at the end of your work stating what tool you used and how — for example, “I used Claude to help me think through how to respond to a student’s misconception before writing my reflection” or “I used ChatGPT to help me organize my thoughts on a reading before drafting my own analysis.” This mirrors how educators and researchers acknowledge tools, collaborators, and resources in their work. It is not a penalty — it is honest attribution.
If you are unsure whether a particular use of AI is appropriate, ask. Engaging responsibly with powerful tools — knowing when they help and when they get in the way of your own growth — is itself a skill worth developing as a teacher.
Note: I used Claude to help draft and revise this policy statement. This is one example of how AI can be used transparently and responsibly in support of meaningful work.
Physics Education Research at UNG 