Understanding the basic concepts of electricity represents a major challenge to most students in K-12 education. Learners find it particularly difficult to develop a robust understanding of potential and potential difference and often believe that the electric current is “used up” by devices. A promising way of making circuits more accessible to students in introductory electricity lessons is offered by the use of analogies in combination with simulations. We therefore developed a new, analogy-based simulation of simple electric circuits. The simulation is intended for use in combination with the bike chain and the air pressure analogies, the implementation of which has been shown to support students’ development of a conceptual understanding of simple DC circuits. Teachers and students can access the 3D simulation free of charge using a modern browser.

Building a positive and inclusive cohort feel among students of physics is challenging when their first postsecondary experience is in large lecture-style courses. To this end, this poster will describe the range of different communication technologies and tools that my Department has used to increase our formal and informal communication with undergraduate students of physics at different stages of their degree programs. Comparisons focus on three aspects: the instructor/administrator’s intended goal for usage, the actual usage patterns by students during (pre-COVID) in-person learning, and the actual usage patterns by students during (COVID-necessitated) remote learning.

While students and teachers often consider how energy can be stored in gravitational fields, other force fields (such as magnetic fields) receive much less attention. Using solar flare reconnection as a real-world context, we presents an activity using an AR-based magnetic field display tool (Magna-AR) to help students consider the relationship between fields and the energy in magnets. We also present a draft conceptual assessment to measure students' understandings of energy in magnetic fields.