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Students' attitudes and approaches to problem solving in physics can greatly impact their actual problem solving practices and also influence their motivation to learn and ultimately the development of expertise. We developed and validated…
Professional development workshops are commonly used to promote the adoption of research-based instructional strategies among physics and astronomy faculty. After learning about such strategies, faculty are often motivated to modify and…
As part of a larger study to understand instructors' considerations regarding the learning and teaching of problem solving in an introductory physics course, we investigated beliefs of first-year graduate teaching assistants (TAs) regarding…
As research-based self-paced e-learning tools become increasingly available, a critical issue educators encounter is implementing strategies to ensure that all students engage with them as intended. Here, we discuss the effectiveness of…
In peer mediation--an approach to conflict resolution used in many K-12 schools in the United States--students help other students to resolve conflicts. For schools without peer mediation programs, socially assistive robots (SARs) may be…
Generative AI tools, such as AI-generated hints, are increasingly integrated into programming education to offer timely, personalized support. However, little is known about how to effectively leverage these hints while ensuring autonomous…
Active learning strategies have been widely recognised for their effectiveness in tertiary education, yet their implementation at scale, particularly in large first-year mathematics courses, presents considerable challenges. A common method…
Collaborative problem solving (CPS) is a fundamental practice in middle-school mathematics education; however, student groups frequently stall or struggle without ongoing teacher support. Recent work has explored how Generative AI tools can…
Introductory algebra-based physics courses frequently feature multiple student major populations in the same course section, however, different majors' requirements may impact students' motivations towards different aspects of the course…
Modeling the creative mathematical sensemaking that characterizes expert thinking in physics is typically a struggle for new learners. To help students learn to reason this way, we created a set of supplemental activities called Physics…
Investigations related to expertise in problem solving and ability to transfer learning from one context to another are important for developing strategies to help students perform more expert-like tasks. Here we analyze written responses…
Decades of research show that students learn more in classes that utilize active learning than they do in traditional, lecture-only classes. Active learning also reduces the achievement gaps that are often present between various…
Programming instructors often conduct collaborative learning activities, such as Peer Instruction (PI), to enhance student motivation, engagement, and learning gains. However, the impact of group discussion and formation mechanisms on…
While it is well known which curricular practices can improve student performance on measures of conceptual understanding, the sustaining of these practices and the role of faculty members in implementing these practices are less well…
Implementation of cognitive apprenticeship in an introductory physics lab group problem solving exercise may be mitigated by epistemic views toward physics of non-physics science majors. Quantitative pre-post data of the Force Concept…
The ability to categorize problems based upon underlying principles, rather than surface features or contexts, is considered one of several proxy predictors of expertise in problem solving. With inspiration from the classic study by Chi,…
Problem solving is central to physics instruction. Results from Physics Education Research (PER), however, demonstrate that traditional ways of teaching with problem solving are inefficient and ineffective for promoting true physics…
One finding of cognitive research is that people do not automatically acquire usable knowledge by spending lots of time on task. Because students' knowledge hierarchy is more fragmented, "knowledge chunks" are smaller than those of experts.…
Undergraduate physics education has greatly benefited from the introduction of computational activities. However, despite the benefits computation has delivered, we still lack a complete understanding of the computationally integrated…
University students taking introductory physics are generally successful executing mathematical procedures in context, but often struggle with the use of mathematical concepts for sense making. Physics instructors note that their students…