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Ian D. Beatty

Prof. Beatty earned a Ph.D. in Physics Education Research in 2000, the first PER doctoral degree awarded by the UMass Physics Department. He became a postdoctoral research associate and, in 2006, a research faculty member in the UMass Scientific Reasoning Research Institute. From 2000 to 2009 he participated in several research projects and supported the institute’s general operations and technical infrastructure. In early 2009 he moved to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro with two of his colleagues to found the UNCG Physics Education Research Group. Prof. Beatty’s areas of expertise and interest include physics, educational research, information technology, and in-service teacher professional development. He is particularly interested in the intersection between pedagogy and technology. He has developed computer software, web sites, and dynamic web applications to support both instruction and research. He currently manages Teacher Learning of Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment, a five-year, US$2.5M project funded by the US National Science Foundation to study teacher learning and professional development related to formative assessment and “classroom response systems.” Since 1992, Beatty has collaborated with Prof. Gerace on international outreach work to South Africa, Argentina, Cyprus, Uganda, Scotland, Singapore, and Switzerland, presenting or co-presenting talks, workshops, and classes, and consulting on research projects. He has been a visiting lecturer at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba in Argentina and the University of Fort Hare in South Africa. Prof. Beatty likes travel, ethnic food, photography, wilderness sports, and finding new ways to think about things.

There are 10 included publications by Ian D. Beatty :

TitleDateViewsBrief Description
Designing effective questions for classroom response system teaching 2006 199 Classroom response systems can be powerful tools for teaching physics. Their efficacy depends strongly on the quality of the questions. Creating effective questions is difficult and differs from creating exam and homework problems. Each classroom re...
Four-Tiered Question Goals (TEFA Note #04) 2007 141 Questions for students to digest, wrestle with, answer, discuss, and reflect upon are central to the Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment (TEFA) pedagogical approach; one of TEFA’s core tenets is question-driven instruction (QDI). The nature and ...
Probing physics students’ conceptual knowledge structures through term association 2002 99 Traditional tests are not effective tools for diagnosing the content and structure of students’ knowledge of physics. As a possible alternative, a set of term-association tasks ~the ConMap tasks! was developed to probe the interconnections within s...
Question Design Patterns (TEFA Note #05) 2008 145 Question design patterns are general ways of building TEFA questions that successfully achieve specific instructional aims. They are not quite “fill in the blanks” templates, but they are more specific than general strategies or qualities. Some patte...
Teaching vs. Learning: Changing Perspectives on Problem Solving in Physics Instruction 2005 277 Problem solving is central to physics instruction. Results from Physics Education Research (PER), however, demonstrate that traditional ways of teaching with problem solving are inefficient and ineffective for promoting true physics expertise. PER...
Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment: A Research-Based Pedagogy for Teaching Science with Classroom Response Technology 2008 294 Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment (TEFA) is an innovative pedagogical approach to secondary and post-secondary science instruction that uses classroom response system technology to teach in accord with educational research findings ab...
Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment: A Research-Based Pedagogy for Teaching Science with Classroom Response Technology 2009 261 Classroom response systems (CRSs) are a promising instructional technology, but most literature on CRS use fails to distinguish between technology and pedagogy, to define and justify a pedagogical perspective, or to discriminate between pedagogies. T...
TEFA Question Content (TEFA Note #03) 2007 96 The first, most obvious decision we face when designing a question for instruction with Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment (TEFA) is what portion(s) of the subject content the question will focus on. We must answer the question “What is to be ...
Ways of Using TEFA (TEFA Note #02) 2007 89 Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment (TEFA) is a rich pedagogic approach that is intended for frequent and flexible use throughout instruction. It can be used as an occasional “dropin” activity, but much of its power is manifest only when it is w...
What is TEFA? A high-level introduction to the pedagogical approach called “Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment” (TEFA Note #01) 2007 81 Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment (TEFA) is a pedagogical approach for using classroom response technology to conduct effective, interactive, student centered instruction in classes with anywhere from a dozen to hundreds of students. It has be...