Subject: Physics Education Research Conference, 1998--June 26th deadline
The researchers who are conducting research in physics education from a
base within a physics department, in contrast to science education
departments, are getting together for a two day conference just before the
AAPT meeting in August. This will be the third time this group has met.
Here is a tentative schedule and how to register, if you are interested.
Our rooms in the conference center are blocked out only until June 26th, so
if you are interested you should respond soon.
Physics Education Research Conference
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Hardin Conference Center
33rd and Holdrege Streets
Lincoln, NE
9:00 am - August 1, 1998
4:00 p.m. - August 2, 1998
Here is the tentative schedule for the conference...there is still some
flexibility in the schedule, so please feel free to offer your suggestions.
We have raised some funds to provide housing support for graduate students.
We also intend to publish a paper and electronic version of the
proceedings. So we will be recording and then transcribing all of the
sessions. We will also solicit short histories of all of the teams and
individuals. We will also try to track down all of the PhDs in RPE and
find out what they are doing now. We want the proceedings to be the state
of the field as of 1998.
Some issues did crop up different from last year. Nearly all of our PhDs
will not be working in PRE teams. They will almost surely be working as
"loners" in research departments or in other settings. It seemed important
to discuss those kinds of career issues at this meeting. The funding
support issue looms large also....we are training more professions to
compete with us for fixed amounts of money...same size pie for more eaters,
perhaps. So we have added a session to deal with that. So the career
dimension of RPE is a significant part of this PERC. Next year, if there is
another PERC, perhaps the emphasis will change.
Friday night (July 31st): Pre-conference Graduate Student and Post-doc Rap
Session: Valentino's Pizza Restaurant across the street from the Hardin
Center.
8:00 p.m. until ? discussions and introductions coordinated by
Rebecca Lindell Adrian, Cecilia Hernandez and Tom Koch, UNL
9 am Saturday, August 1st.
Registration at the Hardin Center 9 am
Set up posters-each team(person) is encouraged to bring a poster about
their current work
Opening Session:
10 a.m. Welcome from UNL Dignitaries who have contributed funds to support
the Conference. Chair: R. Fuller, UNL
Some Methods for Research on Teaching and Learning -a panel presentation
and discussion of content from other disciplines that may be useful to
researchers in physics education.
Dr. Greg Schraw, UNL - Contemporary Research Paradigms and How They Shape
Your Results
Dr. John Creswell, UNL - Qualitative and Mixed Methods Research
11:30 a.m.- Break to look at posters
12:00 - Lunch
Luncheon Speaker- Arnold Arons, Univ. of Washington - Seattle "Research in
Physics Education: The Early Years "
1:30- Research and Development Projects We are Now Doing - Physics
education groups are almost unique among the research groups in physics in
that these groups often include both research and development activities.
This session will, we hope, provide us a image of the total R and D
landscape in physics educatioin at this time. Each research team(or person)
will be given a few minutes to point out their research and development
efforts and tell about their posters. Each group(or person) will be asked
to prepare a one page printed page to be included in the conference
proceedings and to distribute in the conference packet.
Chair Jeff Adams, MSU. Role Model and First Presentation...Greg
Francis, MSU
3:15 Break
3:30 Twelve to Twenty Contact Hours and Research Too
A panel presentation and discussion by Beth Thacker, GVSU, David Maloney,
IUPUFW, and Randy Harrington, UME, on doing research in special RPE
environments . Chair: Bob Beichner
4:45 But How Do We Pay for All of This?
A panel presentation and discussion by Dean Zollman, KSU, David Hestenes,
ASU, and Duncan McBride, NSF, on seeking and obtaining funds for RPE. Chair
John Risley
6:30 Dinner East Campus Student Union
Banquet Speaker: Dr. Sharon Hays, AAAS Congressional Policy Fellow,
personal staff of Congressman V. Ehlers, Chair of the National Science
Policy Study Committee of the U.S. House of Representative
The US National Science Policy Study with discussion to follow.
8:30 until ??? Graduate Students Present and Discuss Their Current Thesis
Research
Note; presenters may be limited to students who have passed all the
hurdles prior to PhD candidacy and are now full time research PhD students,
or part time TAs whose full time research work in for their dissertations.
Chair, T. Koch, UNL
Sunday, August 2, 1997
9:00- Brunch
10:30 Frontiers in RPE A panel presentation and discussion by Bruce
Sherwood, CMU, Alan Van Heuvelen, OSU, Ron Thornton(tentative) Tufts, and
Jose Mestre, UMA. Chair James H. Stith
12:00 Box Lunch and Discussion of publishing research in physics education
including the Journal of Physics Education Research by Joe Redish and
Lillian McDermott. {Will they willing to unveil a draft version of their
resource letter on RPE for AJP?}
1:30 Concurrent Research Tutorials:
Instructional materials based on research using the learning
cycles(ala Piaget and Karplus) -Dean Zollman and N. Sanjay Rebello, KSU
Context Rich Problems - Using Education Research to Construct
Useful Physics Problems.-Ken and Pat Heller, UMN
Developing and Learning From Protocols - ?
3:00 Final Discussion-Lone Rangers Get Lonely: Getting Your RPE Team Larger
than One Professor
featuring representatives of groups that are larger than one
tenured faculty person who in actively engaged in RPE.
So far Risley and Beichner(NCSU) qualify as well as Mestre and
Gerace(UMA) and Reif, Sherwood and Chabay(CMU)-
4:00 End
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Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr. Phone: (208)385-3105
Professor of Physics Dept: (208)385-3775
Department of Physics/MCF421/418 Fax: (208)385-4330
Boise State University dykstrad@bsumail.idbsu.edu
1910 University Drive Boise Highlanders
Boise, ID 83725-1570 novice piper
"Physical concepts are the free creations of the human mind and
are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external
world."--A. Einstein in The Evolution of Physics with L. Infeld,
1938.
"Every [person's] world picture is and always remains a construct
of [their] mind and cannot be proved to have any other existence."
--E. Schrodinger in Mind and Matter, 1958.
"Don't mistake your watermelon for the universe." --K. Amdahl in
There Are No Electrons, 1991.
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