Luiz Manzoni
Concordia College at Moorhead, MN·Education Research
Physicists in research, industry and teaching increasingly need to use computers, computation and artificial intelligence to solve problems, but many undergraduate physics programs do not teach these skills throughout the curriculum. Changing that requires more than one new course: whole departments must revise courses and align many instructors.
- Fields
Education Research
Physics
- Topics
physics education
computational physics
artificial intelligence
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Sep 2031
What they work on
- Apply Kotter's 8-step change model to integrate computation systematically and sustainably into the undergraduate physics curriculum at participating institutions.
- Develop a consensus list of computation competencies, learning goals and AI skills for physics undergraduates, with a curriculum map linking them to common courses.
- Build a validated assessment instrument to measure student learning in computation and the effectiveness of departmental change efforts, and document case studies across institution types.
More about the research
This collaboration among eleven colleges and universities treats computation integration as an institutional change problem. Nine institutions, including this one, apply Kotter's 8-step change model, a structured approach to organizational change, to build computation into their physics curricula in a lasting way. Together the collaboration aims to produce three things: a consensus list of computation competencies, learning goals and AI skills for physics undergraduates, with a map linking them to common courses; a validated assessment instrument measuring student learning and the success of change efforts; and case studies plus a small set of adaptable change models. A cohort of 30 Ambassador instructors from 2-year, 4-year and PhD-granting programs helps develop and spread the materials.
Why it matters
Physics departments nationwide could use these learning goals, assessment tools and change models to teach computation and AI more effectively, better preparing physics students for careers in research, industry and education.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Larry Engelhardt
Francis Marion University, SC·Education Research
Establish regional faculty-development workshops, built on the PICUP community and sustained by local leaders, that help physics faculty add computational activities to undergraduate courses.
Walter Freeman
Syracuse University, NY·Education Research
Establish regional PICUP faculty-development workshops, sustained by local leaders, that help physics instructors integrate computational activities into undergraduate courses, with emphasis on Minority Serving Institutions and two-year colleges.
Suzanne Brahmia
University of Washington, WA·Education Research
Identify the learning objectives of second-year mathematical methods courses for physics majors and the math skills students bring into them, using interviews and samples of student work.
The school
Concordia College at Moorhead: 1 labs on PI Pages.
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