Physics laboratory courses are supposed to teach setting up valid experiements, conducting measurements, data analysis, determining validity of the measurements including estimating error bars and statistical and systematic uncertainties, drawing conclusions, and comparing to a set of hypotheses.  We have attempted to create a two-semester sequence of lab courses, which are conducted online in their entirety, and which we think accomplish all of the learning expereiences that in-class hands-on laboratory courses can achieve.

The COVID pandemic catalyzed many changes to education including an increased reliance on internet resources.  While some of the changes were (thankfully) temporary, many of the changes will last.  This talk will highlight some of the advantages of cloud-based active-learning and explore which features of online resources should be used and exploited even when education is face-to-face.    

The pandemic unwantedly introduced higher education to online teaching. However, this otherwise unwelcome experience has unlocked previously untapped opportunities to reach underserved students struggling to succeed within the traditional path. Here we report on a two-semester remote introductory physics laboratory course we designed to provide authentic scientific training on par with traditional in-person laboratory instruction. The class centers on hands-on experiments performed by the students at home with instruments and supplies from a low-cost reusable laboratory kit we assembled. Activities have been thoughtfully designed to facilitate interactions among students and between students and instructors. We aim to provide a sound alternative to the in-person lab especially for at-risk and transfer students who face greater challenges to fulfill their academic requirements. Since its inception, the class has been on high demand, and the students have consistently cited flexibility as a reason for taking it.

For over two decades, the authors and their colleagues resisted pressure to shift our labs online. The pandemic changed our conclusions, but not for the reasons one might guess. The pandemic didn’t change our perceptions about what students can and cannot learn online. The role of the pandemic was to give us the space we needed to change our goals for students’ learning in lab. Previously, we had emphasized conceptual understanding of physics, coupled with admittedly vague ideas about the value of hands-on interaction with “real” equipment. The pandemic shifted our focus to experimental design, data analysis, and professional communication. Our students now alternate face-to-face experiences with at-home experiments including computational exercises, labs using smartphone sensors, and labs conducted in online simulations. This talk will focus on the learning goals and evidence of student achievement. We will highlight one or two of the simulation-based labs as examples.

Among the common challenges to online physics experiments is the need to access equipment that students likely do not have the capability of accessing. Furthermore, performing a remote experiment, whether virtual or hands-on, can be difficult without a lab partner when multiple sets of hands or eyes are needed to make measurements. In this talk, I would like to discuss the use of an Arduino uno-ultrasonic sensor combination that enables students to perform a series of first-semester, undergraduate level kinematics experiments.  Using an ultrasonic sensor, the student can take time-dependent distance measurement enabling the measurement of speed and acceleration of objects. Such experiments can allow remote-learning students directly collect data on linearly moving objects, objects in harmonic motion, and more without the need for a lab partner. Despite being able to perform sophisticated, undergraduate-level experiments, the equipment expenses are quite low and easily managed via a low-cost lab fee.

Over the past two years, the Physics Education Research (PER) group at Portland State University (PSU) has been conducting a study of students’ perceptions of their own learning in online physics laboratory courses.  Part of this study was conducted using a survey containing closed-response, Likert-scale questions. We present our analysis of this data set accumulated between Fall 2020 and Summer 2022. We found that a small to medium-sized and statistically significant increase was detected in participants’ perceptions of their own ability to choose the appropriate analysis methods for laboratory work, and that this effect was consistently detected in the last term of the sequence, which contains a unique, remote design-your-own experiment curriculum.