The undergraduate researcher will participate in an ongoing project that investigates appropriate ways to integrate computer simulations, hypertext-based concept maps, and hands-on experimentation in a design-based learning context.  The undergraduate researcher will be involved in all aspects of the research studies.  These include designing investigations of student learning, collecting data from relevant sources including interviews with students in introductory physical science courses and participating in the qualitative and quantitative analyses of these data.  The undergraduate researcher should expect to work closely with a graduate student whose Ph.D. dissertation is based on this project.  All attempts will be made to design a study that while part of a larger project, will be one that can be brought to closure by the end of the summer. 

Dr. Dean Zollman:  Research-Based Teching Materials for Pre-Med Students

Email: dzollman@phys.ksu.edu

Modern medical procedures – diagnostic and treatment – involve sophisticated applications of fundamental principles of contemporary physics.  Pre-medical students who are enrolled in an introductory physics course (the pre-med course) have heard of many such procedures.  Yet, they will seldom encounter these applications while studying physics.  Building on research on the teaching and learning of physics, we have created several lessons to help pre-med students understand how contemporary physics is applied to modern medicine, primarily medical imaging.  The instructional units that introduce applications of contemporary physics to medicine integrate applications of contemporary physics into the pre-med physics course, emphasize hands-on and minds-on activities, combine written materials, interactive multimedia and utilize visualization techniques.  At present we are putting the finishing touches on units related to CT scans and positron emission tomography.  We are conducting research on an MRI unit and just starting one on hearing.  A unit on wave front abberometry is complete.  Each module is relatively short and will be redeveloped so that teachers can substitute for existing, traditional materials without a need for a complete revision in the physics course.  An REU student could work on either one of these units.