Physics Education Research (PER) Division provides a forum for the research on pedagogical techniques and strategies that will help students learn physics more effectively and help instructors to implement these techniques. This also includes the best scientific practices like active learning, which will give every student in a class an equal opportunity to learn. For more information on PER, you may also visit this site: https://www.aapt.org/aboutaapt/history/AAPT-History-PER.cfm

We invite you and your colleagues to submit abstracts for oral and poster presentations and eagerly anticipate your participation at the conference.

The core work of a scientist is to engage with what they do not know, and that engagement generally begins with noticing that something is off, that there is some gap or inconsistency —in other words it begins with confusion. If we are really to teach physics, then, we need to help students notice and engage with confusion and to engage productively with it. Part of the challenge is that, in science, confusion is an opportunity for the interesting, pleasurable pursuit of understanding; in school, it is mostly a liability to avoid. I’ll talk about teaching and research on learning focused on how students experience and engage with confusion.