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
Email: laverty@phys.ksu.edu
Project 1
Physics Education Research has long focused on undergraduate education, but calls are increasing to focus on graduate students. We are helping to start this work by collecting and analyzing how departments across the country assess their physics graduate students. In this project, you will help collect and analyze that data as well as dive more deeply into one or two approaches to assessing graduate students. This work will provide a foundation to help researchers who are uncertain about where to start on improving graduate education.
Project 2
Our group is currently developing a new research-based assessment for undergraduate thermal and statistical physics classes. As part of this work, we are developing actionable feedback to give to instructors so that they can improve their courses and better support their students’ learning. While it feels good to say that, we must also provide evidence that the feedback is interpretable by faculty, can be used to improve their course, and is actually having an impact. In this project, you will work with other members of the project to think about how to validate this feedback, which may include designing, running, and/or analyzing interviews with faculty.