Brokk Toggerson

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  Integrated Introductory Life-Science Education Group (I²LSE)

  A collaboration of lecturers dedicated to promoting transdisciplinary thinking across the introductory life-sciences curriculum.

  A collection of Lecturers from Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Physics responsible for teaching key courses in the introductory sequence for all life science majors initially supported by a Mutual Mentoring Grant. The current courses on which we are focusing are:

  • First-year courses
  • Bio 151 - First-semester Introductory Biology
  • Chem 111 - First-semester General Chemistry
  • Math 127 - Calculus for Life-Science and Business Majors
  • Second- or third-year courses
  • Chem 261 - Organic Chemistry I
  • Chem 262 - Organic Chemistry II
  • Phys 131 - Introductory Physics for Life-Sciences I
  • Phys 132 - Introductory Physics for Life-Sciences II

  The group aims to understand the connections and relationships between these courses and to facilitate interdisciplinary thinking through the construction of modules that explicitly connect content across courses.

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  5-College Physics Education Research Discussion Group

  Physics instructors from Amherst, Hampshire, Mount Holyoke, and Smith Colleges and the University of Massachusetts Amherst meet to discuss developments in physics education research and support each others' teaching.

  Each of the five colleges in our area has a unique character which results in a diversity of student populations and educational environments. Discussions of pedagogy and research inherently benefit from these diverse perspectives. The forum also serves as a resource for conducting our own research.

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  Physics 131

  First-Semester Introductory Physics for Life-Science Students(IPLS): Forces, Energy Entropy

  Since Fall 2015, Physics 131 has been taught in an exclusively Team-Based Learning mode in a room especially designed for such pedagogies. In this model, students are responsible for learning the fundamentals of the material on-their-own using readings and formative homework before coming to class. Students are then summatively assessed on their preparation with a 10-question multiple choice quiz at the beginning of each of the five units. During class, students work in teams of five to to master more complex ideas, practice problem solving, and complete integrated laboratory activities. All summative assessments, including the beginning-of-unit quizzes and the three exams, are pyramid in structure: students first complete the exam individually and then with their team. The final grade is a combination of the two. At the end of the semester, the students evaluate their teammates' collaboration. This peer-evaluation figures into each student's grade.

  The content for Physics 131 covers the three fundamental concepts of physics: forces, energy, and entropy broken down into five units.

  1. Forces and Motion in 1-D
  2. Forces and Motion in 2-D
  3. Torque with an emphasis on biomechanics
  4. Conservation of energy across distance scales from the atomic to the macroscopic (includes topics typically considered as thermodynamics).
  5. Understanding a statistical interpretation of entropy

  More details, and access to course materials, can be found at https://physedgroup.umasscreate.net/course-materials/p131/.

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  Physics 132

  Second-Semester Introductory Physics for Life-Science Students: What is an Electron? What is Light?

  Since Spring 2018, I have been working to implement the same Team-Based-Learning pedagogy in a 300-person lecture hall: a space ill-suited to TBL. The solution has been an opt-in team system: students can elect to be part of an officially organized team or choose to be responsible for organizing their own groups. Another concession to the lecture hall environment is the move from beginning-of-unit quizzes to a single-question quiz at the beginning of each class session. Students are told in advance the content of the question in order that they may be prepared. Knowing that perfect attendance is an unrealistic expectation, a certain number of quizzes are dropped at the end of the semester. To facilitate team cohesion, students on organized teams have a lower number of dropped quizzes (4) than those who are going solo (12). In other regards, the course follows the same TBL pedagogy as 131: students spend class time working collaboratively to solve problems and conceptual questions. Assessment is, as with 131, using pyramid exams.

  The content of Physics 132 centers on the two guiding questions: What is an electron? What is light? These questions guide through the entire five units. In addition, each unit has a biologically or chemically authentic question that we address by the end of the unit:

  1. Quantum Mechanics - Why do electrons in atoms have discrete energy levels? What is meant by wave/particle duality? Can we predict the molecular orbitals seen in organic chemistry?
  2. Geometric Optics - How do different materials impact the propagation of light and electrons? How does the human eye work? What about the eyes of other organisms? How do we prescribe glasses?
  3. Electrostatics - How does the fact that the electron has charge impact its behavior? How does gel electrophoresis separate molecules of different sizes?
  4. Circuits - What are the practical implications of charges moving together? How can we model the neuron as an electrical circuit?
  5. Magnetism and Electrodynamics - What are magnetic fields? What is light?

  Unlike 131, the lab for 132 is more traditional in that it operates semi-independently from the lecture portion. I have worked with our Director for Undergraduate Laboratories to develop a sequence of labs that focus on data analysis skills with physics simply being the context. The goal is to provide students skills that they can use in their major courses of study.

  More details, and access to course materials, can be found at https://physedgroup.umasscreate.net/course-materials/p132-second-semester-ipls/.

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  Physics 691G

  First-semester graduate student identity construction and professional development through the lens of TA training.

  Physics 691G is a 1-credit seminar developed in conjunction with some experienced graduate students and with support from the Cottrell Scholars Collaborative National TA Workshop during June 2017. The course was first offered the fall of that year and has been evolving since. The primary goals for this seminar are:

  1. Most of what UMass TAs do is facilitation of groups working in teams (Team-Based Courses, Labs, Office Hours). Thus, we want our TAs to be effective in facilitating students working in teams to solve problems.
  2. We want a “professionalization” of our GTA program which includes (but is not limited to) an improvement of GTA self identity and a development of an explicit awareness of the transferrable skills that being a GTA provides.
  3. We feel that the GTA seminar would provide an excellent context for the exposure to issues of diversity.
  4. Improve faculty support for a robust GTA program (as opposed to disparate TAs assigned to faculty) for stability of the program over time.

  We have shared this course within the UMass community and extensive details are available at https://physedgroup.umasscreate.net/course-materials/graduate-ta-training-seminar/

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  Physics 361

  Introduction to Principles of Active Learning in Physics Education.

  The goal of this course is to provide an introduction to some of the modern researched-based pedagogies used in physics educational research in a theoretical way as well as providing students an opportunity to both observe and practice these techniques in a real classroom as a member of the PHYS 131 instructional team. Students be attending a P131 section, which is taught in a Team-Based Learning (TBL) format, and answering questions of students during the class-time activities. Moreover, students will watch and reflect upon the P131 instructor’s use of modern teaching techniques. There will also be a weekly meeting for students to explore the principles underlying modern pedagogical best-practices. The course is divided into four units, each of which culminates in a project which provide students unique skills or products that they can use in future job applications:

  1. Basics of Teaching: Students will begin a teaching journal reflecting on their practice throughout the semester. This journal will ultimately be turned in at the end of the semester.
  2. Backward Design: Students ultimately practice backward design by writing the goals for a course, objectives for a unit within that course, and an associated exam question, which they could add to a future teaching portfolio.
  3. Evaluating Teaching and Issues of Identity: This unit ends with an assignment where students develop instructional models for 3-D printing using the principles of Universal Design for Learning.
  4. Teaching Philosophy and Reflection: Students write a teaching philosophy for their final assignment.

  More details on this course are available at https://physedgroup.umasscreate.net/course-materials/phys-390t/ (390T was the name of the experimental version of the course before it earned formal approval.)

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  Summer Pre-College Particle Physics

  A two-week summer program for high-school arranged through the UMass Amherst Commonwealth Honors College

  During this two-week particle physics program, motivated high-school students have the opportunity to explore the exciting world of electrons, particles of light, the famous Higgs boson, and more. They learn about the fundamental forces and conservation laws that govern this world of particles, and, by extension, our world. In addition to the underlying physics concepts, participants have a hands-on opportunity to learn about how modern science is done by actually doing it. Participants work in teams analyzing real data from modern particle experiments such as the CMS experiment at CERN as part of a two-week project. In this project, participants will decide what particle to focus on and, as part of a team, figure out how to separate collisions in which your particle is produced from background "look-alike" events. The skills you will develop, such as statistical analysis, are used not only by particle physics, but also by professionals in astronomy, genetics, epidemiology, and the new field of data science.

  There are two materials available for this class, please feel free to use either of them with attribution:

  • A "textbook" containing the syllabus, goals and objectives, as well as the materials needed for the different labs.
  • The set of lecture slides that I used in class

I advise both graduate and undergraduate students with an interest in education. Students work both on developing instructional content such as open-educational textbooks and conducting physics education research. While I will post specific positions on my group's website, if you are in the 5-College system and interested in some physics education experience, please do not hesitate to reach out!

Publications from the ATLAS experiment include only those to which I provided a significant contribution. For a full list see here.

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  Letters of reference

  What you need to know before you ask for a letter of reference from me.

  1. First think to yourself, "Will Dr. Toggerson be able to recall my face when he sees my name?" Remember, I have over 300 students a semester. While, I can write a letter without this criterion being met, it will not be a very good letter, and probably will not help your case.
  2. You should have earned a high B in my class in order to get a letter. Exceptions to this rule will be made if you have demonstrated exceptional improvement over the course of the semester.
  3. Provide a CV or resume. This should describe the relevant courses you took, the research projects you have worked on, any honors, and relevant work experience.
  4. If you have a personal statement, please send me that as well. Such statements can be helpful in making the letter more personal. However, don't write a personal statement just for me.
  5. If more than one reference is needed, please provide me a list of all recipients and due dates
  6. Be aware of deadlines. Don't annoy me (the person you are asking for comments on your work ethic!) by handing me requests due the following day unless you can convince me that there is a really good reason for the late notice!
  7. Please follow up with me. I get many emails, and sometimes, I may put your request on the back burner in order to deal with more urgent matters. Silence doesn't mean no, silence means I forgot. It is up to you to follow up.
  8. Speaking of following up, if you give me a request months out, you may want to follow up as the deadline gets closer.
  9. I will let you know when the letter has been sent.
  10. This item is not specific to me, but good advice in general; if someone of whom you have asked for a letter says, "you must have someone who could write you a better letter." Take the hint! You don't want someone writing you a bad letter.
  11. I will ask you to meet one-on-one. We will chat so that I can get to know you better.
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  Physics Study Techniques

  A collection of physics study techniques from current physicists and engineers.

  I asked some friends and colleagues of mine who are all now physicists or engineers, "How do you study physics?" Here are their responses:

  Me

  I would go to lecture and take detailed notes. After lecture I would begin working on the homework and do as much as possible on my own. Afterwards, I would contact a friend or two of mine and set up a homework session where we would go through our solutions. Sometimes in the course of trying our solutions to each other we would find a mistake in our work. If no one understood the problem, then we would work on it together. These were the problems where we probably learned the most; we would explain ideas to each other and explore the concepts involved. If we got stuck, we would go ask the instructor for help.

  In preparing for exams, I would go through the text and combine my class notes and the text into an outline or map of the concepts. These outlines definitely found use later in making studying for the final exam much more efficient. After outlining, I would work practice problems. Usually these problems were done in a group, as I find explaining what I did to others to be very beneficial.

  MW (physicist in industry)

  I did my best when I did lots of practice problems that provided different examples of using the same concepts. Using the same concepts in different ways to solve different problems helps to abolish the idea that you can just plug and chug without thinking about the real problem at hand.

  JS (engineer)

  Focus on concept based questions. I've found a lot of engineers get by on their math skills alone and couldn't answer the simplest of conceptual questions. I've also found drop outs who could have made great engineers, but they got tripped up trying to understand and didn't get the emphasis on understanding the material they needed since it was all about solving the problem.

  Also, make sure your algebra skills are like second nature. That way you are not thinking about algebra, you are focused on the concepts and any new mathematics. I thought I understood algebra, I got a good grade in it, but I had trouble doing it at the level needed at first.

  RPM (astronomy Ph.D.)

  Lots and lots of practice problems, even ones I've done before. Not just doing them, either, but making sure I understand why I'm doing what I'm doing. Also, I usually go through my notes/the text book and summarize key points, relationships, and equations. For the equations, I make sure that I know what they do and how to use them (practice problems help with this step). It's a long process that requires at least two days, sometimes more depending on what I'm studying for and how much material there is.

  CBL (physicist in industry)

  Understand the difference between the mathematical framework and the physical model. What are the physical concepts and how is it written down mathematically? Physics and mathematics is so intertwined that it can be hard to see what is what. Learn how to read formulas; what does each symbol stand for and what is it purpose? Learn how to write formulas: "If I want to express this physical concept mathematically, how would I do it?" Always read the units in an equation, so that you know what the core quantity is flowing between all the separate components of the equation. To know what is flowing between everything is essential for the understanding of an equation. To know what is flowing is also to know what is conserved. In the end we are all plumbers.