The objective of the project was to increase awareness of quantum information science and to design resources appropriate for use by high school students. Most educators do not have a background in physics, much less quantum, and even those with physics degrees expressed anxiety about teaching something they are not comfortable with and do not fully understand. The fear of learning quantum is very real and one of the biggest barriers to classroom implementation.  Therefore, the project started with content topics educators would already be familiar with and used those topics to show how quantum applies to all areas in order to address their fear and lack of confidence.

In order to impact high school students, it is imperative to give teachers the confidence to teach quantum and recognize the relevance of quantum in the future workforce. Therefore, this project focused working with secondary educators and empowering them to teach quantum by designing resources appropriate for high school students.  Due to COVID, the workshops were transitioned from F2F to virtual, which was an unexpected challenge. Although the leaders are all master teachers, they had very little experience in using virtual tools.  In addition, in the summer of 2020 it was unclear as to how long the pandemic would last and most thought schools would be back to “normal” in the Fall of 2020.  When the pandemic continued, the leaders recognized that in order to move forward they needed to convert everything to an online format.  Although there is considerable research as to the importance of face-to-face (F2F) environments in teacher preparation, there was no baseline or research as to how to cope with the online environment. Converting to an online format required extensive planning, collaboration, and multiple levels of support including meeting in-person as well as virtually.  In addition, it was necessary to develop small teams to work on specific topics due to the fact that none of the leaders had taught all of the topics, much less taught them online. Constant communication, extensive planning, pedagogical adjustments, and responsiveness to feedback from peers and participants was important to ensure different components built on each other and modeled best classroom practices. Pivoting from F2F to virtual was challenging, but overall the virtual workshops were successful as evidenced by the number of participants that continued to attend every day, the conversations in breakout rooms and chat, and the interest in future sessions.

 An outcome of the project was the creation of multiple modules designed for the virtual environment approximately 1.5 hours in length (some high school classes are 1.5 hrs long). The resources developed were designed to be conceptual, engaging, relevant, and the math was significantly reduced to decrease anxiety and reduce potential student barriers. The leadership team is hopeful the model developed will provide useful guidelines to other educators planning to conduct virtual professional development workshops focused on quantum as well as other physics topics.

The broader impacts of this project include providing educators with critical knowledge about quantum mechanics, particularly QIS, understanding the role it plays in modern technology, and how to translate quantum principles into real life applications for their students. As the second quantum revolution approaches, a working knowledge of quantum physics will no longer be exclusive to professional physicists, but a required skill for a large spectrum of the workforce, from data clerks to computer scientists, architects, engineers, chemists, mechanics, web developers, farmers, food service personnel, and countless others.

Last Modified: 07/01/2022
Modified by: Karen J Matsler