Collaborative research: a faculty development approach to transforming undergraduate physics education by integrating computation

This National Science Foundation (NSF) STEM Education program (CFDA 47.076) project grant award of $766,689 to Michigan State University (MSU) aims to transform undergraduate physics education across the United States by increasing faculty adoption of computational physics topics.

The key products and services to be delivered under this 4-year award include: 1) Establishing regional faculty development workshops to support physics departments, especially at minority-serving institutions and two-year colleges, in integrating computational activities into their undergraduate physics courses; 2) Building a national community through additional workshops and leadership development; and 3) Conducting research to investigate student learning in computational physics and develop an assessment framework to support inclusion of underrepresented students.

The project will leverage the existing Partnership for Integration of Computation into Undergraduate Physics (PICUP) community, with a goal of assisting at least 50% of bachelor's degree-granting physics departments and 25% of two-year college physics departments. The award also includes a $116,763 sub-grant to the American Association of Physics Teachers to provide financial oversight and administrative support.

Abstract

This project aims to serve the national interest by improving physics education across the country by increasing faculty uptake of computational physics topics in undergraduate courses. Computational skills are crucial in all areas of science and engineering, and IT is important for students to develop these computational skills in the context of their undergraduate physics education. The partnership for integration of computation into undergraduate physics (picup) has been working for the last several years to build a community of educators to support this mission. This iuse level 2 institutional and community transformation (ICT) project will leverage the growing picup community to establish regional workshops throughout the country that will be sustained in the years to come through local leadership within each region. These regions have been specifically selected in order to maximize picup's impact on minority serving institutions (msis) and two year colleges (tycs), with the goal of assisting physics faculty from at least 50% of the nation?s bachelor?s granting physics departments and 25% of TYC departments in their endeavors to integrate computational activities into their physics courses. Alongside the regional faculty-development workshops, the project will build national community through national workshops and leadership development. The project supports research to investigate students' learning in computational physics across a variety of contexts. The research results will drive the development of an assessment framework for student learning of computation in undergraduate physics courses. Instructors from tycs and other special-focus institutions will be included in the assessment framework research, which will help support the inclusion of students who are historically understudied in physics education research. The NSF iuse: EDU program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of stem education for all students. Through the institutional and community transformation track, the program supports efforts to transform and improve stem education across institutions of higher education and disciplinary communities. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.- subawards are planned for this award.