Physics Education Innovation Seminars |
Organizer: Josh Weber, Regular Time: 2nd Tuesday of the month at 1pm.
Ayshea Banes: My research explores ways to center Blackness within the physics classroom and how this may transform the Eurocentric pedagogy currently used to one that is culturally relevant and community-based. Another topic I researched (with Erika Marin-Spiotta, Dept. of Geography) was ways that anti-Blackness (more commonly known as white supremacy) appear within physics education and how by identifying its exclusionary mechanisms/assimilationist norms may lead to roads of Black liberation.
Isaac Barnhill: (working with Josh Weber and Peter Timbie)
This experiment aims to make a controlled comparison between two different styles of instructional physics lab activity: traditional labs which aim to reinforce content learned in the course lectures, and experimentation labs which aim to teach students the role of experimentation in science broadly, and physics in particular. The study will explore how students’ personal views on the nature and utility of experimentation are impacted by their lab curriculum and whether the new curriculum affects student exam scores.
Mihir Manna: (working with Ben Spike)
Our research is centered on supporting strategic problem-solving approaches by students in Physics 103. Specifically, we are writing new discussion problems that encourage students to choose their own high-level strategies, rather than following a traditional “fill in the blanks” structure that can limit student agency. We hope that these prompts will help students gain a better appreciation for the usefulness of physics principles, generalize such approaches to other contexts, and feel more self-confident in their problem-solving ability.
Zoom recording available. Please contact Josh Weber for access