Current Projects

Cultural practices for cultivating ethical engineering

This project explores student learning within a Science, Technology and Society Program. We seek to understand how engineering students’ macro-ethical reasoning develops within the cultural practices of this community.

Changing the culture: Propagating effective practices for assessment and educational change in physics

We are conducting research studies on departmental change processes and cultures of assessment within physics programs (as part of the EP3 Project). Culture of assessment refers to the norms and practices of using assessment data to improve — in this case — undergraduate physics education.

Online Out-of-Class Resources

Exploring how students use online resources for their homework and studying outside of class, how it affects their learning, and about the ethics involved. 

STEM+C+Society

Partnering with teachers on the design of inquiry for socio-scientific computational thinking

Modified Exam and Homework Grading in Engineering Physics Courses: Effects on Students' Study Habits and Anxiety

Explores how undergraduate engineering peering majors taking Dynamics and Thermodynamics courses respond to a collection of changes in how homework and exams are administered and graded.

Past Projects

• Engineering Learning Assistants Project
• How does a pedagogy course for undergraduate teaching assistants working in an engineering design course affect how they notice and reason about inequitable participation patterns in engineering design teams' work? 
• Quantum Mechanics Project
• Partnering with students to design and refine undergraduate, physics tutorials that engage users in mathematical sense-making.
• Living Physics Portal
• The Living Physics Portal is an online environment for physics faculty to share and discuss free curricular resources for teaching introductory physics for life sciences (IPLS). The objective of the Portal is to improve the education of the next generation of medical professionals and biologists by making physics classes more relevant for life sciences students.
• STEM+C
• Working with elementary school teachers to integrate computational thinking into STEM curricula
• PhET Project 
• Modeling the dynamics of integrated technical and moral reasoning in contexts of socioscientific issues  
• Creating a Common Thermodynamics 
• National Experiment in Undergraduate Science Education (NEXUS) 
• Improving students' mathematical sense-making in engineering 
• Open Source Tutorials 
• Minority Student Pipeline Math Science Partnership (MSP)^2 
• What Influences Teachers' Modifications of Curriculum? 
• Learning Progressions in Scientific Inquiry 
• Disciplinary Experts in Science Education Research
• Understanding and Overcoming Barriers to Using Mathematics in Science