1. GOALS OF THE CONFERENCE CONFERENCE PLANNING & IMPLEMENTATION
Crafting a Revolution in Physics Education:
Conference on Introductory Physics for the Life Sciences (IPLS)
THE GRANT
NSF TUES (#130830)
PI: Robert Hilborn, Associate Executive Officer, AAPT
Co-PI: Juan Burciaga, Bowdoin College
Co-PI: Dawn Meredith, University of New Hampshire
Co-PI: Mark Reeves, George Washington University
Co-PI: Patricia Soto, Creighton University
The grant was used to fund the Conference on Introductory Physics for the Life Sciences in March The objectives of the conference was to broaden the community of physics educators working to reform the IPLS courses, to examine the current pedagogies and practices in the IPLS courses, and to provide professional development focused on developing and maintaining curricular change.
At the two-day conference two hundred physics and biology educators came together in working groups, sessions, and numerous discussions to study the need for curricular reform, determine what was being done already, explore what challenges lay ahead, and to strategize on how to meet these challenges.
GOALS OF THE CONFERENCE
The specific goals of the conference were
to establish the differences between physical and the life sciences that are relevant for the design and implementation of effective IPLS courses.
to develop, for faculty teaching IPLS courses, a series of guidelines with respect to course topics and format aligned with authoritative recommendations1-3.
to identify existing resources for IPLS courses and also currently lacking resources.
to highlight examples of IPLS courses taught with interactive engagement techniques and the effects on student learning in those courses, and to make recommendations about the development of assessment tools to better measure student learning in IPLS courses.
to further expand the IPLS “community” and then use it to gather and disseminate information on IPLS courses.
CONFERENCE PLANNING & IMPLEMENTATION
Speakers during the 9 plenary sessions articulated the physics and mathematics needs of future life scientists and health practitioners, the basics of course design and reform, and the process of curricular and institutional transformation.
Between the plenary sessions, participants broke into small breakout sessions and working groups
to develop an initial list of learning goals for IPLS courses, which can be used to guide instruction and assessment.
to articulate the most important set of challenges facing an individual instructor, and the department as a whole, in providing an introductory physics course for the life sciences that best matches the resources of the department to the pedagogical and career needs of their students. Identify the resources/strategies that exist to help meet those challenges and also to identify those resources/strategies that do not exist.
to develop a set of recommendations to the IPLS community.
In addition, 33 participants brought posters presenting IPLS reform projects at their institutions.
CONFERENCE OUTCOMES
The conference organizers, from the outset, made plans to archive all material of the conference archived on ComPADRE, the digital archive of physics and astronomy, maintained by AAPT.
The conference website4 now houses the schedule, talks, discussion notes, posters, a database of course syllabi, resources, and the final report. Plans are being explored to use the conference website as a keystone of an expanded IPLS Portal for continued curricular development and distribution.
The final report5 summarizes the state of the IPLS course and was written as a guide on IPLS curricula reform and development for instructors and departments. A link to an electronic copy of the report was sent to the chairs of all physics departments.
The conference has allowed the number of identifiable physics educators pursuing reform in the IPLS courses to double in size. Networking at the conference helped foster several large collaborations among the participants.
BACKGROUND
As many as 200,000 potential future life scientists, physicians and health professionals take courses on introductory physics for the life sciences (IPLS) each year.
Several reports1-3 calling for change brought key issues and questions into clear focus and so a core group of physics educators working through the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), the country’s leading society on physics education, and the American Physical Society (APS), the country’s premier physics research society, began a community wide conversation on the needs of the IPLS courses from the perspective of the students in the courses, the life and health science disciplines, and the faculty teaching those courses.
But after a decade of work a substantial effort was needed to raise the conversation to the next level.
REFERENCES
1 Bio2010: Transforming Undergraduate Education for Future Research Biologists. (National Academies, 2003)
2 Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians (AAMC/HHMI 2009)
3 Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education: A Call to Action. (AAAS , 2010/11)
4 Conference on Introductory Physics for the Life Sciences (
5 Conference on Introductory Physics for the Life Sciences Report (AAPT, 2015)