News

By Sujata Krishna

The UF Physics Learning Assistants (LAs) are undergraduate students who are trained to facilitate small group discussions in physics classrooms. They first practice in freshman-level courses. This peer-learning model enables low-stake, active-learning sessions where the students consider challenging physics problems, state their viewpoints, back them up with reasoning, and arrive at a consensus as a group. Students verbalize their understanding of physics and become accustomed to using the concepts and skills they learn in the course.

During pedagogy and preparation sessions the LAs work together with the LA program coordinator, Dr. Sujata Krishna, and are engaged in similar small group discussions themselves. This helps the LAs, who are physics or non-physics majors, to be prepared to play the role of acilitators. LAs often work together, substitute for one another and create joint projects of mutual interest.

This is the second spring the LA program is undertaking an outreach activity. Last year, UF Physics LAs went to a middle school in Levy County to conduct a lecture-demonstration which was a great success. This spring, a group of six LAs created an outreach project with the goal of getting local elementary school students excited about physics. In two separate 2.5-hour sessions, held in February and March, a team of six LAs went to an after-school center to conduct a fun afternoon of learning.

UF Physics LAs took the initiative to contact Diana Balderas, the Coordinator at the Kids Count program at the Duval Learning Academy, to make the arrangements. The LAs fed pizza to the 45 students and created a lesson plan on the basics of magnetism, designed in a playful way. The lesson began with an explanation of how magnets function and what they are used for in everyday life, and answering questions. After this, kids opened their magnet kits, which the LAs provided through a small grant. For the rest of the lesson, LAs demonstrated an activity with magnets while the kids were replicating it on their own. While they were doing so, the LAs put their facilitation skills to work by walking around the room and assisting the young learners. They also played a Jeopardy math game with the students. For their second visit, LAs are planning a bingo math game and a demonstration related to gravity.

This outreach activity provided a wonderful leadership experience for the LAs. The LAs drafted a proposal submitted to and eventually funded by the UF’s Brown Center for Leadership and Service from the Community Engagement Impact Funding program. They also gave interviews and presentations, and wrote a report after the activity. It has come full circle. We hope to continue with the tradition of making connections beyond UF and giving back to the community.

For further information, contact Prof. Sujata Krishna at: SujataKrishna@ufl.edu

 
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