ABSTRACT:

Science and engineering have advanced dramatically over the past few centuries, but the teaching of these subjects has not.  The primary goal of university education in these subjects is to have students develop expertise, the ability to think like skilled scientists and engineers.  I will discuss how research on both the development of expertise and the nature of technical expertise can provide guidance for more effective teaching and research training, and I will provide examples of results when these ideas have been implemented in practice.

BIO:  

Carl Wieman holds a joint appointment as Emeritus Professor of Physics and of the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. He has done extensive experimental research in atomic and optical physics and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001 for the first realization of a Bose-Einstein condensate (with Eric Cornell and Wolfgang Ketterle). He has also done extensive research on physics and science education, developing new approaches and evaluating the effectiveness of various teaching methods.  That work was recognized with the Yidan International Prize for Education Research.  Recently, he has focused on the nature of expertise in science and engineering and how to better measure and teach it. He served as Associate Director for Science in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy from 2010 to 2012.