Colloquium: “Putting the Experiment Back in the Lab”

The Syracuse University Department of Physics is pleased to welcome Dr. Natasha G. Holmes, associate professor at Cornell University, for her talk titled “Putting the Experiment Back in the Lab.”

What is the purpose of an introductory physics lab? Often instructional labs are structured such that students perform experiments to observe or discover classic physics phenomena. In this talk, Dr. Holmes will present data that questions this goal and argues for transforming labs to focus instead on the skills and understandings of experimental physics. She will provide several examples of experimentation-focused labs and research on their efficacy for students’ skill development.

Natasha G. Holmes is the Ann S. Bowers Associate Professor in the Department of Physics at Cornell University, with the Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics. Prof. Holmes received a B.S. in physics from the University of Guelph and an M.S. and Ph.D. in physics from the University of British Columbia and conducted postdoctoral work at Stanford University. Her physics education research group studies anything to do with physics lab courses, from student learning, attitudes and skills development to the equity of lab group work. She is also interested in methodological questions to understand how we measure and assess student outcomes quantitatively.