[Emeriti-faculty] REMINDER: Colloquium at 3 pm in Knipp Library

["Marchesini, Danilo" <Danilo Marchesini tufts edu>]

Colloquium at 3 pm today in Robinson Hall, Room 253. Refreshments at 2:30 
pm in the Knipp Library, Room Rob. 251.
Prof. Noah Finkelstein from University of Colorado - Boulder will present 
the following:

TITLE:
Physics Education Research: a resource for educational transformation at a 
critical time.

ABSTRACT
After decades of research into student learning, assessments, and 
curriculum design, physics is considered one of the leading fields engaged 
in discipline-based educational research (DBER).  Simultaneously, 
unprecedented national attention is now being paid to the outcomes of and 
needs for DBER.  After framing the national-scale scene of physics 
education, and how physics education research (PER) is positioned to 
contribute to the national dialog, I will review the growth of our own 
program at CU, and my own work at the individual, the course, and the 
departmental scales. I will present samples of these scales reviewing:  
novel work on student use of representation and analogy in physics 
learning, demonstration of the impacts of teaching interpretive themes on 
student learning of quantum mechanics in our modern physics courses, and 
conclude with how subtle faculty choices influence something as canonical 
as clicker use in our introductory physics sequence. Time and interest 
permitting we can explore the development of a framework for understanding 
(and effecting) sustained change in undergraduate physics education.