NSF REU at K-State: Interactions of Matter, Light and Learning
The K-State REU program offers summer fellowships to do world-class research in our friendly physics department in the scenic Flinthills. We are funded by the National Science Foundation.
Physics Education Research (PER)
E-mail: laverty@phys.ksu.edu
What do physics assessments tell students about physics knowledge?
What students think it means to know and learn physics (their “epistemology”) has a significant effect on their learning. Students who believe that learning physics is about memorizing equations approach the subject very differently than students who believe that physics is about making connections between the real world and the concepts presented in class. Recent work has suggested that the actions of instructors in classes can send implicit messages to students about what it means to know and learn physics. In this project, you will look into what implicit messages might be sent to students through exams and homework questions. No special training or preparation is needed to be a part of this project.
What differences exist between LA supported and TA supported studios?
The KSU Physics department has recently started a Learning Assistant Program. This program brings students who recently completed a course back to part of the instructional staff in subsequent semesters. Our implementation has included sections that still used TAs and sections that used LAs. We now have several sets of exam and survey data that we can use to investigate potential differences in the effectiveness of LAs and TAs. In this project, you will analyze several sets of data from these courses looking for potential differences. No special training or preparation is needed to be a part of this project, but a basic knowledge of statistics would be helpful.
What do we really want students to be able to do with math in physics after they have completed their introductory courses?
The use of math is entangled with almost every aspect of doing physics at the college level. In fact, “Using Mathematics and Computational Thinking” is one of the eight scientific practices defined for the Next Generation Science Standards. Unfortunately, there is a limited amount of time in which to help students learn physics in any course. We spend that time wisely by focusing on the most important uses of math. In this project, you will interact with faculty from the physics department (and maybe others) to determine what are the most important uses of math that they want students to have after completing an introductory physics course. No special training or preparation is needed to be a part of this project.