Understanding Educational Reforms: Impacts of Physics Education Research

Physics education research (PER) has resulted in new materials, approaches to teaching, and theoretical understanding of student learning in physics. PER has influenced practices in introductory physics courses, impacting tens of thousands of students, and a growing number of current and future teachers. While the field has demonstrated positive effects in many instances, remarkably little work has gone into understanding how research-based, educational reforms are replicated and sustained. This talk will begin by discussing the curricular choices we have made at CU Boulder, and why. We will then investigate transfer of innovations across institutions, and among our own courses, and the resulting impacts on students over time. Data we have collected over the past half dozen years provide a base from which educators can make informed decisions about difficult choices in curriculum, methods, resource allocation, and teaching focus. I will present a variety of measures of learning, longitudinal data on our majors, and outcomes for future high school teachers resulting from our innovative Learning Assistant program.

Steve Pollock is Associate Professor of Physics at CU Boulder. His current research interests are coupled with the Physics Education Research program at CU. He is actively involved in studying student learning in large and small scale classes (NSF CCLI), including the constraints and opportunities of replicating "proven" curricular practices, and extending educational models to the upper division.
http://spot.colorado.edu/~pollocks/