Abstract

We report on how a college and university physics-based research-practice partnership (RPP) has flourished in the greater Montreal area. The RPP has fostered bringing discipline content knowledge AND pedagogical knowledge together to design effective instructional innovations. It has co-designed activities and built resources that engage students meaningfully with the physics content (including for waves, optics, and modern physics), and provide evidence of statistically significant learning gains. This partnership has informed the development of a community of practice, Supporting Active Learning & Technological Innovation in Studies of Education (SALTISE), which facilitated the knowledge mobilization. SALTISE infrastructure allows us to share with other instructors, using a peer-to-peer professional development approach. These resources include: 1) a repository of peer-generated teaching and learning materials on the SALTISE website, 2) peer mentoring and support, 3) monthly virtual meetings and information sharing, and 4) a free annual conference that brings together practitioners and researchers. We discuss how this model could be useful for the SPIE community.

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