Session P02: Fellowship & Jin Award Presentations followed by Public Lecture by Carl Wieman

Awards Presentation by Mette Gaarde

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Having more students learning to think like physicists

I will discuss the two educational challenges that many physicists must confront if the field is to continue to thrive. First, how can we best train advanced students to become skilled physicists, and second, how can we effectively introduce the broad population of introductory students to the joys and value of physicist thinking. My group's studies of expert problem-solving by scientists has provided insights for how to achieve both these goals. We have identified a set of 29 specific decisions that frame the process by which successful physicists and other scientists solve authentic problems in their fields. Providing practice and feedback in making these decisions is the most efficient way to develop advanced students into skilled physicists. We have also found that structuring an introductory college physics course around solving real-world problems following a template based on a subset of these problem-solving decisions has allowed more students to succeed, regardless of their prior physics background.