Lillian C. McDermott

18

History

3/15/10

D.

Interlude at the National Science Foundation

In 1982 political pressure had led to the termination by President Reagan of NSF

funding for precollege science education.

After the publication of

A Nation at Risk

in

1983, NSF was again authorized to support science education for precollege teachers.

47

Late that year I was invited to NSF to speak about precollege teacher preparation.

This

event led to an experience that had a long-term effect on me.

Laura (Pat) Bautz, then the

Interim Assistant Director for Science and Engineering Education, asked me to serve as

Director of the new Division of Precollege Education in Science and Mathematics.

I felt

that I had to accept, and Mark agreed. For the first nine months of 1984, I commuted to

Washington, D.C. from Seattle to help restart NSF participation in teacher education.

I

came home for a long weekend every three weeks.

Emily van Zee managed our projects

in my absence.

My service at NSF engendered a deep respect for the program directors

with whom I worked and an ongoing loyalty to the National Science Foundation.

After my return to UW in late 1984, two important events occurred.

In 1985 Joan

Valles became our Program Coordinator.

Up until that time, Emily and Martha Means (a

peer instructor) had assisted me both in my classes and in management of the grants.

For

the next almost 20 years, Joan helped create an effective, pleasant working environment.

Also in 1985, Peter Shaffer, who was beginning the Ph.D. program, expressed interest in

our research.

Since it was quite obvious that he would be a very strong addition to the

group, I invited him to be a Teaching Assistant (TA) in the EOP course.

He became my

sixth graduate student and, eventually, my faculty colleague and very good friend.

E.

A Matter of Names

During the 1980s, I had to consider in two different contexts the question that

Juliet asks: “What’s in a name?”

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The first was our group’s name; the second was my

own.

We had come to be known in our Department as the Physics Education Group.

Unlike “Physics Education Research Group,” a name used by other groups in physics

departments today, the word

research

is not in our title.

As soon as we started to conduct

research on student understanding, we began to develop curriculum. “Physics Education

47

This report by the National Commission on Excellence in Education was critical of U.S. education and

led to the re-involvement of the federal government in science and mathematics instruction.

48

William Shakespeare,

Romeo and Juliet,

II, ii, 1-2.

Lillian C. McDermott

19

History

3/15/10

Research and Curriculum Development Group” seemed far too cumbersome.

Besides, we

were (and continue to be) strongly committed to our work with K-12 teachers.

“Physics

Education Group” seems more appropriate and we have kept the name.

The second context involved my own name.

At Vassar, I had acquired a

nickname, “Chris,” which was derived from my last name (Christie).

When Mark and I

met as graduate students at Columbia, he thought that the nickname suited me.

After our

arrival in Seattle, he introduced me as “Chris” to the UW Physics Department.

In the

early days, my two very different names were no problem.

However, as I began to gain a

professional reputation, confusion resulted.

One day, a colleague mentioned that several

physicists he had encountered at meetings had referred to a “Lillian McDermott” and that

it took him a while to make the connection.

From then on, I decided to go with “Lillian.”

Some habits are hard to break and I still struggle to remember who calls me what.

III.

Research and Development:

Physics by Inquiry

Physics by Inquiry

was the first of two research-based curricula developed by the

UW Physics Education Group.

Laboratory-based and self-contained,

PbI

is designed to

help teachers develop the competence and confidence necessary to be able to teach

physics and physical science effectively.

A.

Overview of

Physics by Inquiry

Physics by Inquiry

provides the opportunity for teachers to learn (or relearn)

physics and physical science in a way consistent with how they are expected to teach.

PbI

is characterized by a few broad principles.

The two most important are:

49

•

Concepts, reasoning ability, and representational skills are developed together

within a coherent body of subject matter.

•

Physics is taught as a process of inquiry, not as an inert body of information.

The curriculum consists of a set of modules, all of which require active learning.

There are no lectures. Observations and simple experiments provide the basis on which

students construct physical concepts and develop analytical reasoning skills.

Starting with

a few plausible assumptions,

PbI

guides students through a chain of reasoning that enables

them to construct conceptual models that they can apply to predict and explain the

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For a discussion of the principles that underlie

see L. C.

McDermott, “Millikan

Lecture 1990: What we teach and what is learned – Closing the gap,”

(4),

301

(1991).