Dear All,
please see the message by Stuart Farmer. I'd like to encourage you to take part in this Doodle poll if you're interested to join the discussion about a wider IOP Scotland Physics Education Research Group.
Best wishes,
Nic
I am emailing you following the IOP Physics Education Research (PER) Symposium which took place on 31 October 2024, see https://www.iop.org/about/news/iop-hosts-inaugural-physics-education-research-symposium. This hybrid event was very successful and one at which Scotland was very well represented both at the in-person event in London and online. I think I have included all those from Scotland who attended the event in this email, but if you think I have missed anyone then please let me know. I know some others would have liked to have attended but were not able to do so. I have also included in this email some others who I think might be interested in this area of work, including members of the IOP Scotland ITE Group of staff responsible for physics initial teacher education (ITE) in Scottish universities, and the IOP Scotland Physics Coach team responsible for much of the career-long professional learning (CLPL) for physics teachers in Scotland.
At the symposium in October, I had brief conversations with some who wished to see the momentum of the event continued, and I have also had conversations during the last couple of years or so with others who had indicated it would be good if IOP could convene a group of those interested in PER in Scotland. I would also like to make it clear from the outset that I am defining the term PER fairly widely to include any research related to the area of physics education, for example, most of my own research in recent years has been on the professional learning of physics teachers and on physics teacher retention in Scotland rather than on ‘physics’. Just as with the PER symposium, the intention is to bring together people with an interest in conducting research with those more interesting in communicating and disseminating research and with those more actively using the research in practice. Also, as with the PER symposium this will therefore include those from both physics and ITE departments in universities, those involved with physics teacher CLPL, and those working in schools and colleges.
This group is therefore a complement to the SUPA PER group which has a narrower focus on PER in universities, https://www.supa.ac.uk/physics-education-research, and not a replacement or competitor, something I have discussed with Nic Labrosse who co-convenes that group with Anna Wood, and who I know from various other IOP activities previously. Nic and I would like to gauge how much interest in building on the momentum of the PER symposium and to explore what synergies there might be by bring a wider group of people together from across the sectors, but who all have an interest in research in the area of physics education.
To find a suitable time to meet and explore this further, I have set up a Doodle poll for a twilight Teams meeting sometime in the last two weeks of January 2025.
https://doodle.com/group-poll/participate/en7RRxWa
If you do not think this group is for you then there is no obligation to attend. However, if you know of others who you consider might be interested but I have not included in this message, please pass the link to the Doodle poll on to them.
In this initial meeting, Nic and I wish to explore how much appetite there is for this group which has the potential to bridge across between currently fairly siloed groups, what sorts of interests people have, and how the group might best add value to the activities already occurring in the PER space in Scotland.
If you have any suggestions for the agenda, please let me know.
Yours,
Stuart
Dr Stuart Farmer CSciTeach CPhys FInstP
Learning and Skills Manager (Scotland)
Institute of Physics
37 Caledonian Road, London N1 9BU
+44 (0) 7765 500172
Gray L., Farmer S. and Moore I. (2024) Practical teaching in secondary level certificated physics: a view from Scotland
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6552/ad82cb
Farmer S. (2024) A Knowledge Framework for Teachers of Physics and Physics Teacher Educators: The Genesis of a Knowledge Framework Based on the Knowledge Quartet
https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7102/14/7/687
Farmer, S. (2024) Moving from transmissive to transformative: Closing the policy‐practice gap in teacher professional learning in Scotland
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