ComPADRE Pathway

Posted Tue, 11/17/2009 - 1:49am by bmason
Grant Number: 
0532798
Target Audiences: 
The ComPADRE Pathway serves students, teachers, college faculty, and the general public with a need for physics and astronomy education resources. The pathway is divided into collections (currently 16) focused on the needs of a particular community of users, from middle- and high-school teachers, to faculty teaching advanced undergraduate laboratories, to independent learners.
Partners: 
Each ComPADRE collection has one or more editors involved in its organization, content, and connection to the community served. These editors are the backbone of ComPADRE and crucial to the project's continuing growth. The ComPADRE project is itself a collaboration of three professional societies, the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Physical Society, and the Society of Physics Students, part of the American Institute of Physics. The participation of the societies is vital for connections to the ongoing efforts in physics education. Collaborations with other physics, astronomy, and science education projects are vital for our progress. Other ComPADRE collaborators include: the Open Source Physics project that edits a ComPADRE Collection for simulation-based curricular materials; SERC supporting the creation and hosting of the pedagogical context for educational resources found in ComPADRE; MERLOT using Federated Search for sharing resources and resource annotations; members of the European Physical Society, collaborating on annual reviews of educational multimedia; the Physics Teacher Resource Agents, a 25 year mentoring effort for high school and middle school teachers; the Paradigms project disseminating cutting-edge pedagogical resources in upper division physics; the Astrophysics Data System abstract service using ComPADRE's Federated Search service; and the PER Topical Group which is responsible for a community portal to bring research-validated educational resources into the library.

The fourth year of this Pathway project has focused on expanding the services provided through ComPADRE, particularly in collaboration with others, and the development of better tools for placing teaching materials in context.

Major project activities this year included:

 1) The ComPADRE workshop and conference services have been used extensively this past year to support physics education efforts and to promote the ComPADRE collections. The web sites for conferences on physics and science teacher preparation, physics education research, and the upper level undergraduate laboratory experience have all been hosted on Compadre. These activities strengthen communities, raise the profile of Compadre collections, and bring quality materials into the collections.

2) The Compadre staff has worked closely with our collaborators to expand the content of the library. The work with the Open Source Physics project continues to broaden the resources available in the database. Of particular note is the addition of a separate OSP collection specifically for upper level statistical and thermal physics, tied to a soon to be published textbook on the topic. A collection focused on relativity has also been launched with the help of volunteer editors who are experts in the subject. Of greatest impact on Compadre and the physics education community at large is the hosting of The Physics Classroom by Compadre. This is a widely used introductory physics web site that was in peril of disappearing.

3) Content development is continuing on all collections in Compadre. On the high school physics collection, the addition of more and richer units organized to recommended material to new physics teachers. The editors of this collection have also started the creation of teaching modules connecting resources into lesson plans with descriptions of classroom use. This effort is using the ComPADRE shared personal file folders. The introductory undergraduate collection is continuing to grow in number of resources, and also through an effort to build content interfaces based on organization of textbooks. Finally, a collection has been launched that presents profiles physicists and astronomers in both traditional and non-traditional careers. This effort provides career information for students, parents, and teachers and encourage students to pursue careers in science, physics, and astronomy.

5) A new portal to Compadre was designed and implemented based on research on usage and recommendations from editors and the Compadre advisory board. The portal now includes more extensive information about the Compadre collections for guests not logged into the library and more personal information for members. Simpler and more graphical interfaces have been created for the computational physics and advanced laboratory collections. The topical vocabulary has been updated to meet the needs of new and expanding collections in upper level physics, mathematical physics, and education. Finally, the evaluation and web traffic reporting for the collections has become more focused on the needs of the different editors. This has helped strategic planning and updates for the collections.

Some of the major results of the ComPADRE efforts for this year include:

1) The collaboration with the Open Source Physics (OSP) project has resulted in a highly used resource collection and the potential for many future developments. The OSP is now the third or fourth most accessed collection in ComPADRE because of the quality of the resources and reputation of the project.

2) The hosting of the Physics Education Research Conference (PERC) has had an impact on usage of the PER collection. Before the PERC in 2008, the traffic on this collection averaged about 5,000 page views per month. There was a peak during the 2008 conference and a steady growth through this year. The traffic was around 18,000 page views per month in April and May of 2009, and there has been another peak around the the 2009 PERC.

3) The usage of the high school collection doubled over the past year, with a similar increase in the central Compadre database, the Physical Science Resource Center (PSRC). Other Compadre collections have seen modest growth this past year.

4) Use of the Physics Classroom has exploded. From January through May of 2009, it received between 45,000 and 52,000 user visits and between 225,000 and 335,000 page views per week. Due to expansion of the web site and referrals from the previous home at an Illinois High School, this collection is now receiving around 130,000 vistors and 600,000 page views per week.

5) The summer research opportunities database attracts about half of the users to the student collection during application periods for summer internships. There are now more than 200 research opportunity providers, many with multiple positions, that are using ComPADRE to post their positions. Many of these are NSF-sponsored REU programs.

6) The most recent Adopt-a-Physicist event, which connects high school classes with scientists and others who received a degree in physics in an online discussion, included more than 8,500 discussion posts over two weeks. This effort has attracted the interest of a science museum that wishes to provide similar  communications between classrooms and scientists.

Outreach Activities:

ComPADRE is working with our many partners to increase the effectiveness of science education and promote content and pedagogical understanding of instructors. By hosting collections of resources specifically focused on students, ComPADRE is helping improve the future STEM workforce. These goals are the core purpose of the project.

The Compadre staff and editors continue to be engaged in outreach efforts at both regional and national events. These events increase the awareness of ComPADRE and the NSDL and encourage use. This year, workshops and presentations have been held at five AAPT and APS regional meetings, four AAPT, APS, and SPS national meetings, and with the NSDL at the AAAS meeting. In many cases, multiple presentations are given at these meetings as well as there being a Compadre presence in the meeting exhibit hall. The editor of the high school collection continues to present in web seminars and at teacher preparation events. The ComPADRE and OSP PI's have also presented at several high-profile physics education meetings around the world.