Title:  Rethinking Physics Service Courses: The Challenge of Cross-disciplinary STEM Instruction

Abstract: 

Cross-disciplinary instruction is common in STEM programs. Physicists teach engineers; chemists teach biologists; and mathematicians teach everybody. But scientific disciplines create distinct cultures – conventions, goals, expectations, and epistemologies – and these differences can lead to serious challenges for an instructor teaching out of her discipline. In this talk, I discuss how what has been learned in decades of Physics Education Research can help us better understand these challenges. And to use that understanding to figure out how to help our non-physics students get more authentic value from our classes — and to value what they have learned.

Bio:

Redish received his undergraduate degree from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in theoretical nuclear physics from M.I.T. in 1968. His two-year postdoc at the University of Maryland turned into a 50-year career. For his first 20 years, he was an active researcher in nuclear reaction theory. But in the late '80s he learned about the new field of Physics Education Research (PER) and was enthralled by the surprises and interesting insights it was gaining, both about student learning and about thinking about physics. In 1993 he turned to PER full time, establishing a research group in the UMd Physics department. Since then, the group has produced 23 Physics PhDs in PER, many of whom now have faculty positions and positions of leadership in the PER community. He is the winner of numerous awards for his work in PER, including from the APS, IUPAP, the AAPT, and the NSF.

For the past decade, Redish has been involved in the rethinking of introductory physics for life science students and has created an innovative new course, NEXUS/Physics, designed to articulate with the program of biology majors. This has been a highly productive research environment for the group, leading to the publication of more than 30 research papers and 100's of pages of curriculum.

He officially transferred to Emeritus status in July 2020 and has been working on the topic of teaching non-physics students how to learn to use math in science.

Homepage: http://umdperg.pbworks.com/w/page/10511199/Joe%20Redish

Colloquium Info:

Time: Oct 12, 2020 04:10 PM Central Time (US and Canada)

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