Embracing changes together in physics education

Image via World Conference of Physics Education 2024, All Rights Reserved

Two years ago, I was invited to give a keynote talk at the 4th World Conference of Physics Education in Krakow. The theme of the conference was “Embracing Changes Together”.

In line with this theme, I outlined three collaborative visions for the future of physics education – collaborating across disciplines, collaborating with research physicists, and collaborating with artificial intelligence. Each vision tackles a persistent challenge in physics education, and each is anchored in teacher professional learning – because teachers are our most direct point of leverage.

Those ideas have now become a chapter in Embracing Changes Together in Physics Education, edited by Dagmara Sokołowska and Eilish McLoughlin.

In the chapter, I also make a case for something unique about our field that we shouldn’t underestimate: physics education research is cross-disciplinary by nature. Crucially, physics education research draws on ways of knowing from both the natural and social sciences. I argue that this is our superpower, and it’s what lets us act as intellectual mediators between different disciplinary cultures and domains 💪