Significant, attention is being paid to the needs for transformation within the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education at the undergraduate level. This talk examines how higher education STEM disciplines, and physicistsand physics departments in particular, are positioned to contribute to these discussions and address our challenges.

I will review our own efforts in physics education transformation and the growth of work in physics education research (PER) atCU-Boulder as an example. Our work develops a new theoretical line of inquiry in physics education research through experimental work at the individual, the course, and the departmental scales. I present samples of these scales reviewing: how we can build on understanding of student reasoning to study and transform our introductory through upper division courses, studies of how our environments do and do not support women in physics, and models for engaging in sustainable and scalable transformation.

About Noah Finkelstein

Noah Finkelstein is Professor at The Department of Physics, University of Colorado Boulder. He conducts research in physics education, specifically studying the conditions that support students’ identities, engagement and outcomes in physics. He is a PI in the Physics Education Research (PER) group and was founding co-director of CU’s Center for STEM Learning. He is a Fellow of both the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Presidential Teaching Scholar.

Please register for coffee/tea and sandwich no later then Jan 23