Physics Faculty, Teaching Assistants Bring Hands-on Lab to Students Online
5/28/2020 1:10:35 PM
When Physics senior lecturer Eugene Colla begins remotely teaching his Modern Experimental Physics course in June, he’ll be ready. Colla and his co-instructor, Prof. Virginia (Gina) Lorenz, collaborated with physics teaching lab specialist, Jack Boparai, and a team of teaching assistants to successfully convert the course to virtual instruction midway through spring semester in response to COVID-19.
Online conversion was no small feat for Colla, who has taught Physics 403 since 2004 and has watched the class size more than double in that time. The spring semester saw 28 students, including three exchange students from the United Kingdom.
“He’s built it up to be one of the most popular lab courses in the Physics Department,” Lorenz said. “Students want to take this course because it provides hands-on research experience in a variety of fields ranging from condensed matter physics; to atomic, molecular and optical physics; to nuclear physics.”