viernes, 29 de noviembre de 2024

ICPE Newsletter November 2024

 


Number 76, November 2024


The 33rd General Assembly of IUPAP was held from 11th to 14th October, 2024, in Hainan, China. The new IUPAP commissions for the 2024-2027 term with their mandates were established. A full transition to the new commissions will take place in early January during the online meeting of the Executive Council and Commission Chairs, where both outgoing and incoming members will meet. As this marks my final Chair's Corner, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to all members of the 2022-2024 C14 commission—both those continuing and those, like myself, concluding their service. I deeply appreciate your dedication and contributions to C14 and IUPAP. In this final message, I’ll reflect on our commission’s work and share some thoughts on potential future directions for the Commission.


Our mandate coincided with the slow recovery from the pandemic and gradual return to in-person events. The IUPAP Centenary celebration became a highlight of our Commission’s term and left many of us with fond memories and valuable experiences.


A new ICPE Handbook: "Connecting Research in PhysicsEducation with Teacher Education 3" edited by 2018-2024 C14 member Prof. Jenaro Guisasola and by a former (2018-2021) C14 member Prof. Eilish McLoughlin was published at the beginning of 2022. The book includes contributions from several former and current C14 members. I must take this opportunity to highlight the valuable contribution to research-based resources for teacher training: ISBN 978-1-911669-33-3 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5792068.


Three new issues of ICPE newsletters (#73, #74 and #75) were circulated in 2022-2024. This is the fourth and final newsletter of this Commission. The Newsletters can be found here: https://iupap.org/who-we-are/internal-organization/commissions/c14-physics-education/c14-news/


The ICPE Medal process was disrupted by the pandemic. Only two ICPE medals (for 2020 and 2021) were awarded during the mandate of the current commission. The 2020 ICPE Medal was awarded to Prof. Roberto Nardi of Brazil, former Chair of C14 in November 2022: https://icpe2022physicseducation.com/icpe_medal/. The Medal was presented to Prof. Nardi during an online awards ceremony at the ICPE 2022 conference, titled Physics Education: Planning for the Future. Prof. Nardi delivered an award lecture titled 'Reflections on Developments in Physics Education Research Over the Past Few Decades.'


The 2021 ICPE Medal was awarded to Prof. Paula R. L. Heron of the United States of America: https://iupap.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Citation-Paula-Heron-C14-ICPE-Medal-2021.pdf. The Medal was conferred to Prof. Heron on August 27th, 2024 during the 4WCPE held in Krakow, Poland. Prof. Heron delivered the keynote lecture titled: ‘Does How We Teach Match How Students Learn? The Evolving Relationships Among Theory, Experiment, and Teaching Practice in PER’.


Notably, the ICPE Medal guidelines were revised in 2023 to enhance ethical standards. Under the new rules, current C14 Commission members are no longer eligible for nomination to avoid potential conflicts of interest, though past members remain eligible. A new call for nominations will be announced soon, we encourage you to consider nominating your colleagues.


The 2021-2024 Commission members were privileged to witness and participate in  IUPAP Centenary celebrations that took place over a one-year period from July 2022 to December 2023. The celebrations coincided with the UNESCO-endorsed International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development (IYBSSD). Members of the C14 Commissioners took an active role in raising awareness about both campaigns taking a lead in the celebrations in each of our respective countries.


The IUPAP’s Centennial Symposium was held at the Institute of Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste Italy, from 11th to 13th July 2022. It was held in a hybrid format, attended by 310 participants, of which 110 were in-person and 200 online. The Symposium included plenary talks by keynote speakers and other activities, with an emphasis on the IUPAP history, physics in developing countries, collaborations among countries, physics education, and other items consistent with the IUPAP mission.


The C14 contribution to the Symposium was an invited Education Panel titled: The Trajectory of Physics Curriculum and Its Impact on Society. The panel was held on July 13th and featured three panellists (two C14 members, Prof. Jenaro Guisasola (Spain) and Prof. Nam-Hwa Kang (South Korea), as well Prof. Chandralekha Singh (Pennsylvania, US) who is a renowned physics educator and former AAPT President.  As the C14 Chair, I had the honour of moderating the panel.


The Commission members took active participation in two major international conferences. The IUPAP-sponsored International Conference on Physics Education (ICPE2022) titled: Physics Education: Preparing for the Future was hosted by Australia, Indonesia and Thailand from December 5th to 9th, 2022. The conference was held online with 286 participants from 43 countries. The C14 Vice-Chair Prof. Manjula Sharma and Associate Member Prof. Elizabeth Angstmann were instrumental in organizing this conference.

The Fourth World Conference on Physics Education (4WCPE) took place from 26th to 30th August, 2024 in Krakow, Poland. As a flagship C14-ICPE conference, it was supported by C14. The 4th WCPE was organized by the Faculty of Physics, Astronomy and Applied Computer Science, Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland, in cooperation with the International Research Group on Physics Teaching (GIREP), the International Committee on Physics Education (ICPE-C14), and the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wrocław, Poland.  The theme of the 4th WCPE was Embracing changes Together. C14 played played an instrumental role in planning the conference. Several members of C14 served on the conference’s program committee and also contributed to the programming of the conference. Prof. Jenaro Guisasola put together a Symposium titled Physics Education: Approaches from ICPE-IUPAP C14 Community that took place on August 27, 2024, with Prof. Elizabeth Angstmann, Prof. Tetyana Antimirova, Prof. Manjula Sharma, Prof. Angela Fössel, and Prof. Eilish McLoughlin contributing to the Symposium. The Symposium featured the physics outreach and educational activities undertaken by members of the International Commission of Physics Education, (ICPE- C14). Prof. David Sokoloff presented C14-endorsed workshop emphasising active learning.

Recently Prof. Dean Zollman, a past C14 member, came into a possession of historic materials of C14-ICPE. We hope that a paper about the history of C14-ICPE will be written and published during the next mandate of the Commission.


Finally, it is worth mentioning that the IUPAP is undergoing a review, and is calling on its commissions, affiliated commissions and working groups to think about their missions, mandates and strategies.


In conclusion, I would like to reflect on the unique position of C14-ICPE within the broader structure of IUPAP. Like other Commissions, C14 represents a specialized field of research. However, what sets C14 apart is its dual focus: not only does it advance the field of Physics Education Research, but it also addresses the broader domain of physics education itself, which spans across the boundaries of other Commissions. The mandate of our Commission encompasses a wide range of issues, including curriculum development, the promotion of evidence-based pedagogies, and the advocacy of policies that vary significantly across different countries and regions. Ultimately, C14 strives to strengthen and support physics education worldwide.


Significant contributions to physics education are being made across the globe, yet work published in languages other than English often remains less accessible to the wider community. As such, one important role for C14 members could be to highlight and share these local successes with the global physics community.


The C14-ICPE could benefit from strengthening ties and collaborations with regional physics societies such as: AIP, AAPT, GIREP, EPS and other similar regional organizations around the world. These partnerships are particularly valuable for organizing conferences, as each event requires a dedicated champion and promoter to ensure its success. Given that C14-ICPE membership is refreshed every three years, with members spread across diverse geographical regions and bringing new priorities and perspectives, fostering strong regional collaborations can provide continuity and support for shared initiatives.


In contrast, regional learning societies often have stable memberships and a well-established pool of conference organizers, supported by their departments and universities. These organizations typically possess a clear vision for how their conferences should be structured. By engaging with these conferences beyond merely providing financial support through the IUPAP conference program, C14-ICPE can actively promote its vision for advancing physics education on a global scale.


To conclude, I would like to thank the members of the outgoing Commission for their work and dedication and to extend my best wishes to the newly elected Commissioners.

After growing up in San Francisco, California and graduating from Lowell High School, she earned her bachelor of arts degree from Reed College in Portland, Oregon in1961. She went on to earn a Master's and Ph.D. in nuclear physics from Bryn Mawr College, where she met her husband, Kenneth Laws, Dickinson professor emeritus of physics who passed away in 2021. Ken began at the college in 1962 and Priscilla in 1965. For more than 35 years the college was home to the “Laws of Physics.” They had two children, Kevin and Virginia, the latter of whom is married to David Jackson, current Dickinson professor of physics and astronomy.


After researching the health effects of radiation she focused her efforts on the uses of the newly emerging microcomputer technology to support learning in introductory physics courses with activity-based curricular materials. Her earliest efforts resulted in Atari-Lab, one of the first computer-based educational systems. She developed Workshop Physics--a comprehensive, calculus-based curriculum for use in smaller introductory physics classes--similar to those offered at Dickinson. She proposed the name and concept for RealTime Physics, and co-authored this computer-based, active-learning introductory laboratory curriculum with David Sokoloff (University of Oregon) and Ronald Thornton (Tufts University). She was also a member of the team that authored Understanding Physics, a PER-inspired,calculus-based introductory physics text. (Workshop Physics, UnderstandingPhysics and the four modules of RealTime Physics are all published by John Wiley & Sons.) She is also a co-author of Physics with VideoAnalysis, published by Vernier Science Education.


A member of the American Association of Physics Teachers since 1991, she was awarded the Homer L. Dodge Citation for Distinguished Service in 1992, the RobertA. Millikan Medal "for notable and creative contributions to the teaching of physics" in 1996, and she was recognized as part of the inaugural cohort of AAPT Fellows in 2014. She and Ronald Thornton were awarded the 1994 Charles A. Dana award for Pioneering Achievement in Education, and, in 2010 the Activity Based Group--of which she, Sokoloff and Thornton were the  principal members--was awarded the Excellence in Physics Education Award by the American Physical Society “for twenty-three years of national and international leadership in the design, testing, validation, and dissemination of research-based introductory physics curricula, computer tools and apparatus.”


While teaching and writing, she also was on several advisory panels at the NationalScience Foundation and was on the FIPSE Board of Directors for the U.S. Department of Education. She promoted ways to use physics research and education to enhance sustainable development in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and she received the2007 International Commission on Physics Education (ICPE) Medal in recognition of "distinguished contributions to Physics Education with far reaching international impact."


Priscilla was an exceptional member of the international PER community for many years.Her clever ideas, insightful comments, playful attitude towards students and colleagues alike, and her caring and supportive nature are sorely missed.

Receiving the 2007 ICPE Medal

He taught physics at the University of Maryland in College Park for more than 50 years, serving as department chair when Maryland had the third largest physics department in the nation. He has been a mentor to a large number of physics education researchers and has supervised more than thirty graduate students and postdoctoral fellows in physics education research and nuclear physics.


Joe came to Maryland after graduating MagnaCum Laude from Princeton University and earning his Ph.D. in theoretical nuclear physics from M.I.T. After researching the theory of nuclear reactions for 20 years, including serving on the national Nuclear Science Advisory Committee, Joe turned his attention to improving the teaching of physics and other sciences. Over the next 30 years, working with many graduate students and post-docs, he built a strong theoretical framework for understanding how students learn physics and how to help them think more clearly about science. With a strong team of collaborators led by Priscilla Laws, he pioneered a new approach to university physics instruction, The Physics Suite, a synergistic combination of research-based active learning materials and a rewrite of a popular text to blend it with other activities and to modify it to respond to what has been learned from physics education research. He has also created online problems collections for introductory (Thinking Problems in Physics) and advanced physics (Thinking Problems in Mathematical Physics). Redish was also lead developer on an HHMI project to develop a new physics course for biology majors and pre-medical students (Project NEXUS).


Joe served on the PER Leadership Organizing Council, editing the first PER journal and organizing major conferences in the then-emerging field. He joined the American Association of Physics Teachers(AAPT) in 1991 and was actively involved in the organization serving on the American Journal of Physics (AJP) Editorial Staff as editor of the Physics Education Research Section from 1993-2003. Over thirty years he published more than 200 articles in AJP. In 1993 Redish and Lillian C. McDermott published Resource Letter: PER-1: Physics EducationResearch. His “Using Math in Physics” series published in The Physics Teacher include includes some of the most popular (read, most-often downloaded) articles in recent years.


Dr. Redish served on the AIP Advisory Committee on Physics Education (2002), and the USA National Liaison Committee of International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) in 2001 and 2002.


Joe was a University of Maryland Distinguished Scholar-Teacher and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the American Physical Society (APS), the Washington Academy of Science, and the American Association of Physics Teachers(AAPT).  He was the first individual recipient of the APS Education Award.He has received awards for his work in education from the Washington Academy of Science, the Maryland Association for Higher Education, Dickinson College,Vanderbilt University, the Robert A. Millikan Medal (2005) from the AAPT, a 2005 NSF Director's Award as a Distinguished Teaching Scholar, the Medal of the International Commission on Physics Education (the 2012 ICPE Medal at the World Conference on Physics Education), AAPT’s Hans Christian Oersted Medal in 2013, and most recently, in 2014 he was recognized as an AAPT Fellow.


A wise and kind individual, Joe will be sorely missed by all who knew him.


Angela Fösel presented on the International Conferences on Physics Education organized by ICPE. Jenaro Guisasola, in collaboration with Eilish McLoughlin, the GIREP president and former C14 member, introduced the Handbooks that connect research in physics education with teacher education. Elizabeth Angstmann, alongside Manjula Sharma, discussed the ICPE Newsletters, while Tetyana Antimirova highlighted the recent actions and future directions of the commission.

There were 18 participants in this workshop that first reviewed - through active participation-the Interactive Lecture Demonstration (ILD) strategy (1,2) and then described how the 8-step procedure has been adapted to an online version called Home Adapted ILDs (3). The latter make use of available multi-media (photos, videos, computer-based data collection and simulations) for students to make their observations of the physical world. Twenty-six sets of these Home Adapted ILDs are available online (3), free for all to use. They are designed for use as an active learning component of online, distance learning course., pre-lecture activities, e.g. in flipped classroom, and/or post-lecture or homework to reinforce concepts. The multi-media resources incorporated in them could be used in class situations when no equipment is available. In the last part of this 1.5 hour workshop, participants had an opportunity for hands-on work with examples of Home  Adapted ILDs.

Notes:

(1) https://pages.uoregon.edu/sokoloff/InteractiveLectureDemonstrations.pdf

(2) https://pages.uoregon.edu/sokoloff/ILDbook0116.pdf

(3) https://pages.uoregon.edu/sokoloff/HomeAdaptedILDs.html

Paula Heron's pioneering work has significantly enhanced our comprehension of students' challenges in learning fundamental physics concepts, spanning: mechanics, waves, electromagnetism, and thermodynamics. She has enriched our understanding by identifying and addressing conceptual difficulties and revolutionizing instructional practices, impacting physics education globally.


Furthermore, Prof. Heron's leadership extends beyond her research endeavors. She has assiduously contributed to the broader physics education community by actively serving on advisory boards and executive committees, including co-chairing the APS/AAPT joint task force that produced the PHYS21 report and as Associate Editor of Physical Review - Physics Education Research. Her mentorship of graduate students and postdoctoral scholars has fostered the next generation of physics education researchers, ensuring a lasting legacy of excellence.


Internationally renowned, Prof. Heron's influence transcends borders, as evidenced by her keynote addresses and presentations at prestigious conferences and institutions worldwide. Her collaborative efforts with organizations such as the American Physical Society, the American Association of Physics Teachers, and the International Research Group on Physics Teaching have solidified her position as a leader in the advancement of physics education.


In light of her outstanding achievements, including the 2022 Homer L. Dodge Citation for Distinguished Service from AAPT and the 2008 APS Education Award, Professor Paula R. L. Heron exemplifies the ideals of excellence, dedication, and leadership in the realm of Physics Education. Her contributions have left an indelible mark on the field, inspiring generations of educators and researchers.


With admiration and respect, we bestow upon Professor Paula R. L. Heron the ICPE Medal in recognition of her profound impact and unwavering commitment to advancing the frontiers of physics education. The award ceremony took place at the 4th World Conference on Physics Education, 2024, Krakow, Poland.

Tetyana Antimirova presenting the ICPE Education Medal to Paula Heron

Call for ICPE Medal recipients 2023, 2024

In 1979 George Marx, a Hungarian researcher in the field of physics education, proposed to institute a medal to recognise “outstanding contributions to physics teaching of a kind that transcends national boundaries”. The Commission succeeded in establishing the award of an ICPE Medal with the following two criteria: 

  • The contributions to physics education should have extended over a considerable number of years;

  • The contributions should be international in their scope and influence.

The first award of the medal was made in 1980 to Professor Eric M. Rogers during the Trieste Conference on Education for Physics Teaching. The list of recipients can be found at IUPAP C14 ICPE Medal Awardees.

The medal was designed by the Hungarian artist Miklós Borsos. The face shows a symbolic picture: the interaction of human beings with forces of nature in the form of the four elements of the ancient Greek philosophers – earth, water, air and fire, the last one being symbolised by powerful rays of sunlight. The human beings capture the essence of physics education, as we seek to understand and share our understandings of nature. The back of the medal bears the text: ‘Awarded to N.N. by the International Commission on Physics Education of IUPAP for long and distinguished service to physics education’.


Process: 

  • This call is for nominations for the 2023 and 2024 ICPE Medal Awards. 

  • Medals will be awarded, only if worthy candidates are identified. This call for two Medals, one for 2023 and another for 2024.

  • Current C14 Commission members cannot be nominated, but past members can be.

  • Submissions must (1) address the criteria, (2) be accompanied by a complete and up-to-date CV, (3) and include two references from recognized peers.  

  • Submissions must be sent to C14 Chair, Majula Sharma (manjula.sharma@sydney.edu.au), and Secretary, Cristiano Mattos (crmattos@usp.br), by 30th of March 2025.

  • The IUPAP Commission C14 will select the awardee.

  • The Medal will be awarded at a relevant Conference with the awardee presenting.

16th Interamerican Conference on Physics Education (ICPE-XVI-2025), Valparaíso, Chile

Dates: 21st –25th July, 2025

Sponsored by IUPAP

GIREP-EPEC 2025 Conference, Leiden, The Netherlands

Theme: Transforming physics learning via research and practice

Dates: 30th June - 4th July 2025

Website: https://indico.cern.ch/event/1175859/

Details: The GIREP-EPEC 2025 Conference will be held in Leiden, The Netherlands. It is organized by the International Research Group on Physics Teaching – GIREP [Groupe International de Recherche sur l’Enseignement de la Physique] and two institutes at Leiden University: the Leiden Institute of Physics (LION) and the Leiden University Graduate School of Teaching (ICLON).


American Association of Physics Teachers 2025 AAPT Summer Meeting, Washington, DC

Dates: 2nd -6th August 2025

Website: https://www.aapt.org/conferences/

Location: American Association of Physics Teachers 2025 AAPT Summer Meeting; Washington, DC

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