In session 2 2013 I introduced a completely new online inquiry-based, introductory physics course, called “Everyday Physics”.  The course now runs three times per year. This course is a popular elective, on average attracting 200 enrolments per session. An example of an unsolicited email about this course is:

“Thank you so much Elizabeth (not only for your help here but for the teaching throughout the course). I'm a little sad the course is over. It was a wonderful learning experience. Really appreciate all the work you put in to make it so.” (Summer 2013/14)

A diverse cohort, including medical science students and business students, chooses the course. Physics and engineering students are not able to take this course. Over summer semester, many students elect to study it from their home countries, over summer 2014/15 of the students who identified where they were studying the course on the forums 41% were in Australia, 27% in China, others were in Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and Georgia. The course is quite challenging for students, providing them with a quantitative introduction to many branches of physics.

Everyday Physics is designed to keep a diverse range of students engaged while they learn about physics. It is achieving this aim, in an unsolicited email a student wrote “I learnt a lot more about physics and its real life phenomenons. Although it isn't obvious initially,  I learnt a lot and gave a lot of thinking to things around me.  Thanks a lot :)” (Summer 2013/14). The course comprises of twelve (now ten for three terms) topics that are each based on a common object or phenomenon such as kettles and compasses. In each topic, students have access to video lectures, tutorial problems with solution videos, and a moderated discussion forum on Moodle.

Experiments are a critical component to an introductory physics course. For that reason, I devised a series of experiments that the students can perform at home using common household items. These experiments still manage to measure and investigate fundamental physical concepts, such as the speed of sound and the heat capacity of water. To my knowledge, this is the first online physics course able to provide such experiments. To ensure consistency in marking between the numerous tutors I have developed detailed rubrics as well as shared google docs where tutors paste their comments. This was shared with other EF staff at the 2018 EF retreat.

During the course students design their own experiment to analyze the physics behind something they find interesting. A draft of this report undergoes peer review with students being marked on the quality of the feedback they give their peers. This is submitted using the workshop tool on Moodle. Students appreciate the opportunity to receive feedback and see other reports before submitting their final report.

Unfortunately plagiarism and contract cheating is a continual issue in this course. In semester 2 2018 we caught a very large number of students who had contract cheated in this course. Tutors are encouraged to come to me with any suspicions, we remain very vigilant. I shared these experiences at an EF Lunch and Learn in 2018 in a talk "Catching contract cheatahs".

I have presented talks about this course at a couple of international conferences:

Development and evaluation of a contextualised, online, introductory physics course, International Conference on Physics Education, ICPE, Johanesburg, October 2018

Making Physics Appealing to Non-Science students, American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) summer meeting, Prove, Utah, July 2019

In both these cases the talks were very well received with other academics keen to try and introduce similar courses at their institution and/or make use of some of the videos I have produces in their courses.

In 2019 this course underwent a digital uplift. During this digital uplift professional looking introductory and conclusion videos were created for each topic, written lecture notes were created from screen-captures of the videos and a question bank was created in STACK. Longer term I plan on using invigilated online exams for this course to try and reduce the issues with plagiarism.