Physics Colloquium: "Learning by Doing Rather than Teaching by Telling” with Laurie McNeil 9/16

09/05/2025
By Amanda Vozzo

Physics Colloquium
Date: Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2025
Time: 4-5 p.m.
Location: Olsen 503

Laurie McNeil, Bernard Gray Distinguished Professor Emerita, Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will give a talk on “Learning by doing rather than teaching by telling: Teach like a scientist so your students learn the way you did”

Abstract: All physics professors were once science and engineering students. We know that the core of our learning took place when we wrestled with solving problems, not when our instructors lectured at us (regardless of how brilliant those lectures were). For our departments to thrive we must educate our students more effectively using insights about how people learn that have emerged in recent decades from cognitive science and from physics and astronomy education research. In traditional lecture-based teaching the instructor transfers information in the classroom and the students struggle on their own (productively or not) to apply the information to specific situations in their homework. The active-learning classroom reverses this—much of the information transfer takes place outside of class, and class time is used for the students to work collaboratively as they engage in structured hands-on, minds-on application of that information while the instructor provides support. Abundant evidence demonstrates that this results in significantly enhanced learning gains. Once the structure is put in place this pedagogy can be used by anyone, to the benefit of our students and to our own greater enjoyment. 

Bio: Laurie McNeil is the Bernard Gray Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, having retired in July 2025 after 41 years in the department. Her research has been in experimental condensed matter physics, primarily optical properties of semiconductors and insulators. She is a Fellow of the American Physical Society (APS) and a Deputy Editor at the Journal of Applied Physics. Beginning in 2004 she led her department in a transformation of the teaching of all its introductory physics courses to incorporate effective, research-validated methods; established an apprenticeship program to allow both new and experienced faculty to learn effective pedagogy for teaching at all levels; and instituted a program to prepare physics majors to become high school physics teachers. These teaching methods are now used throughout the department, and in 2019 it received the APS Award for Improving Undergraduate Education and the Southeastern Section of the APS selected Prof. McNeil to receive the George B. Pegram Medal for “Excellence in the Teaching of Physics in the Southeast.” More recently she received the 2025 John David Jackson Award for Excellence in Graduate Physics Education from the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT). Prof. McNeil has served APS as the Chair of its Forum on Education and was co-chair of the APS/AAPT Joint Task Force on Undergraduate Physics Programs that produced the 2016 report Phys21: Preparing Physics Students for 21st-Century Careers. She is currently a member of the Editorial Board of the Effective Practices in Physics Programs (EP3) Guide, another joint effort of APS and AAPT