FFPER 2019: Reports from Collaborative Groups

Rachel E. Scherr, University of Washington Michael C. Wittmann, University of Maine Paula R.L. Heron, University of Washington

In June of 2019, 60 members of the Physics Education Research (PER) community gathered at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, for the 8th biennial “Foundations and Frontiers in Physics Education Research” (FFPER) conference. First held in 2005, and modeled after the Gordon Conferences, this meeting is a venue for specialists who are active researchers in the field of physics education. Talks at the conference are all in a plenary format, typically addressing the speaker’s take on the major accomplishments of the field of PER (Foundations) or describing possibly promising research directions (Frontiers). This year’s plenary speakers were: Mervi Asikainen (University of Eastern Finland), Eugenia Etkina (Rutgers University), Jenaro Guisasola (University of the Basque Country), Natasha Holmes (Cornell University), Paul van Kampen (Dublin City University), Sam McKagan (Alder Science Education Association), Gina Passante (California State University Fullerton), Amy Robertson (Seattle Pacific University), and Chandralekha Singh (University of Pittsburgh). The plenary sessions are followed by coffee breaks and discussion sessions in which attendees engage deeply with the speakers and with each other.

Afternoons at the conference are spent in smaller sessions. Conference attendees self-organize into collaborative groups that examine particular research interests or explore current issues in PER. This year, the collaborative groups included one about PER in "developing" or "non-Western" countries, one about a possible YouTube channel for PER, one about using social-psychological interventions to make physics classes equitable and inclusive, one about the formation of a PER review network to foster community and improve research, and one in which PER graduate students worked with faculty mentors to review and improve each other’s short papers. Each of these groups has provided a short write-up of their discussion for this newsletter.

The FFPER conference continues to exist and flourish in part because of the financial support of the Forum on Education and the Topical Group on Physics Education Research. Members of the PER community value FFPER as a space in which to immerse ourselves in current research and to form connections and collaborations with other members of the community.

Rachel E. Scherr, Michael C. Wittmann, and Paula R. L. Heron co-founded FFPER and have co-organized it since its inception.

Disclaimer – The articles and opinion pieces found in this issue of the APS Forum on Education Newsletter are not peer refereed and represent solely the views of the authors and not necessarily the views of the APS.