Lillian C. McDermott
67
History
3/15/10
Award.
166
I especially appreciate this recognition because it specifically acknowledges
our collaborative effort.
What we have done together could not have been accomplished
by any of us individually.
Endnotes
II.a.
Although I had helped Arnold write the proposal to NSF, he had not involved me in grant
management.
During his absence, our grant was randomly chosen for a thorough General
Accounting Office (GAO) investigation.
I had a lot to learn very quickly.
For about six months,
the GAO staff stayed in our building, looking carefully for infringements.
They found none, but
the experience convinced me of the importance of shared leadership and management.
II.b.
Among our early long-term visitors were Betty Windham (Harper College, Palatine, Il), and
Dean Gaily (U. of Western Ontario), instructors in the teacher preparation and EOP courses.
II.c.
The only physics D.A. degree from UW was awarded in 1975 to Arnold’s graduate student.
III.a.
Donna is one of two former Institute participants who earned a Science Education Ph.D. for
research on the impact that
PbI
and the Institutes have had on teachers.
Deborah Hanuscin (now at
U. of Missouri, then Indiana U.) examined how Institute participants learn the “grammar of
science.”
(I was on both Supervisory Committees.)
III.b.
At the 2007 AAPT Winter Meeting, eight former Summer Institute participants who had
conducted “action research” in their classrooms reported their findings.
III.c. Besides Emily van Zee, our Ph.D. students and post-docs, others contributing to the initial or
revised modules included Lezlie DeWater, Brian Popp, and Nelsen Spickard.
IV.
When Cliff Mills left Wiley, Stuart Johnson became our Editor.
In 1999 Erik Fahlgren
replaced Alison at Pearson International, which had absorbed Prentice Hall.
Like Cliff and Alison,
Stuart and Erik were always very supportive.
V.a.
The 22 students in the Physics Education Group who earned Ph.D.s between 1979 and 2008
and affiliations of those who have had faculty positions, are: Brad Ambrose (Grand Valley State),
Andrew Boudreaux (Western Washington U.), Hunter Close (Seattle Pacific U.), Matt Cochran
(Kauai Community College), Andrew Crouse (Ithaca College), James Evans (U. of Puget Sound),
Luanna S. Gomez (Buffalo State), Diane Grayson (U. of Pretoria), Rand Harrington (U. of Maine),
Steve Kanim (New Mexico State), Chris Kautz (Technical U. of Hamburg-Harburg), Pamela
166
The
APS Excellence in Physics Education Award
is primarily intended to honor a group.
The UW
Physics Education Group was cited “
For leadership in advancing research methods in physics
education, promoting the importance of physics education research as a sub-discipline of physics, and
developing research-based curricula that have improved students’ learning of physics from
kindergarten to graduate school
.”
<http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/prizes/prizerecipient. University of Washington Physics
Education Group/08 cfm>.
Lillian C. McDermott
68
History
3/15/10
Kraus, Mila Kryjevskaia (North Dakota State), Ron Lawson, Beth Lindsey (George Washington
U.), Michael Loverude (Cal State, Fullerton), Tara O’Brien Pride, Mark Rosenquist, Peter Shaffer
(UW), Rachel Scherr (U. of Maryland), David Trowbridge, and Karen Wosilait.
V.b.
Our current graduate students are Isaac Leinweber, Tim Major, Benjamin Pratt, Amy
Robertson, and Brian Stephanik.
Tim is our first “Ph.D. grandchild.”
His undergraduate mentor at
Grand Valley State U. was Brad Ambrose, our former Ph.D. student.
V.c
.
Among our other post-docs are: Mark Somers (Mesa Community College, AZ), Greg Francis
(Montana State U.), Richard Steinberg (CUNY), Mel Sabella (Chicago State U.), John Thompson
(U. of Maine), Homeyra Sadaghiani (Cal Poly, Pomona), and Andrew Crouse (Ithaca College).
V.
d.
Among students who earned an M.S. with our group now on a college or university faculty
are: Heidi
Mauk (U.S. Air Force Academy), Eleanor Warfield Close (Seattle Pacific U.), Davene
Eyres (North Seattle Community College ), and Julie Crockett (Cascadia Community College).
V.
e.
REU students (and their recent affiliations) who have worked with us include: Leslie Atkins
(California State U. Chico), Marty Baylor (Carleton College), Geraldine Cochran (Chicago State
U.), Lisa Conway, Renee Michelle Goertzen (U. of Maryland), Fabrian Keels (Virginia State U.)
Sam McKagan (U. of Colorado), Nancy Pellegrino, and Amy Robertson.
IX.a.
Ed Taylor (MIT) worked with Stamatis on teaching Feynman’s sum-over-paths theory.
John Christopher (U. of Kentucky) came for
PbI
and Brian McInnes (U. of Sydney) for tutorials.
IX.b.
B.R. Patton, “Group Learning-Based Approach to the Graduate Electrodynamics
Course: Jackson by Inquiry,”
APS Forum on Education Newsletter (August 1996)
.
“Jackson”
is a graduate-level electrodynamics text: J.D. Jackson,
Classical Electrodynamics,
Wiley, NY
(1962, 1975, and 1999).
X.a
Signatories of the White Paper were: Robert Beichner (Physics Dept., North Carolina State
U.), Richard Hake (Physics Dept., Indiana U.), Lillian C. McDermott (Physics Dept., U. of
Washington), Jose Mestre (Physics & Astronomy Dept., U. of Massachusetts at Amherst), Edward
Redish (Physics Dept., U. of Maryland), Frederic Reif (Physics Dept. and Center for Innovation in
Learning, Carnegie-Mellon U.), and John Risley (Physics Dept., North Carolina State U.).
X.b.
I have served on several AAPT committees and been on the Editorial Boards of
AJP
,
PERS
,
and
PER-PRST
.
When the
ad hoc
Committee on Research in Physics Education (RIPE) was
formed in 1981, I was its first Chair and later became the first Chair of the
Standing
Committee.
In 2006-2009 I was one of six elected members of the first Physics Education Leadership and
Organizing Council (PERLOC), which was the first Topical Group in AAPT.
Paula became RIPE Chair in 2009.
She has been an Editor of the PERC Proceedings, helped
initiate the FFPER series of conferences, and co-chaired those in 2005, 2007, and 2009.
Paula,
Peter, Mac, and Andrew Boudreaux organized the 2010 PERC Conference.
X.c.
I suspect that I owe my active involvement in APS to Judy Franz (APS Executive Officer).
We had met in the early 1970s on a boat tour around Manhattan, during an atomic physics
conference attended by our husbands.
In 1985 I was appointed to the Committee on Education
and was its Chair in 1987 and 1988.
The CoE organized education sessions at APS meetings, a
task now of the Forum on Education (FEd).
I was elected Councillor-at-Large (1989-1992) and a
member of the Executive Board (1991-1992).
I began a second term on the CoE in 1992 and was
its 1994 Chair.
After the FEd was created in 1992, Paula was elected to its Executive Committee.
X.d.
“The scientific societies listed below urge the physics community, specifically physical
science and engineering departments and their faculty members, to take an active role in
improving the pre-service training of K-12 physics/science teachers. Improving teacher training
involves building cooperative working relationships between physicists in universities and
