About Us

We currently have several active areas of research. We are collaborating with experimental particle physicists to evaluate ways to bring experiments that are more authentic to cutting edge physics research into intro physics lab experiments. We are also exploring ways to use computer vision to observe and measure students' group work to expand experiments of instructional strategies to a larger scale than is currently possible with human researchers alone. We are comparing the effects of different active learning strategies on student learning outcomes with the aim of predicting the ideal instructional conditions to optimize learning gains. We are also collaborating with quantum education researchers to explore how instruction impacts students’ understanding of measurement and uncertainty, both in experimental lab settings and in quantum mechanics contexts. Finally, we are updating our department’s introductory physics for life sciences courses and studying how we can utilize different instructional strategies to engage biology students and prepare them for their diverse future careers.