Higher Education Group

About the group

As a special interest, member-driven group, we provide physics education members with meetings across the UK and Ireland and regularly organise joint physics events with other IOP groups. We also support members with links to professional networks, physics resources and blogs.

What interests us is: 

• conceptual understanding in physics
• subject-based physics in higher education research
• degree accreditation 
• influencing policy
• sharing funding information
• employability

What the group does

We develop networks with overseas groups with similar interests and encourage members to discuss their ideas or projects. We invite our members to apply for funding to organise meetings.

In 2018, we contributed to the IOP response to the post-18 review of education and funding (PDF, 327KB).

We also support networks of:

• admission tutors
• directors of teaching and learning
• disability officers
• heads of physics
• outreach and public engagement
• PhD supervisors

Physics resources

Event resources

• Developments in Physics Teaching and Learning in Higher Education During the Last 100 Years, 9-10 November 2020
• Physics Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Community Meetings, May-August 2020 (A series of meetings to discuss the challenges of online and blended learning in Physics.)

Annual General Meeting, online meeting, 19 August 2020:

• Minutes of our annual general meeting (PDF, 79.3KB)

Annual General Meeting, University of Bristol, 21 August 2019:

• Chair's Report (PDF, 188KB)
• Treasurer's report (PDF, 215KB)
• Groups and membership report (PDF, 700KB)
• Minutes of our annual general meeting (PDF, 112KB)

Variety in Chemistry Education (VICE) and Physics Higher Education Conference (PHEC) Satellite Meeting, 21 August 2019, Bristol:

• How can we help our students flourish? (PDF, 1.5MB) Fabienne Vailes, University of Bristol. Virtual presentation
• Support and student community initiatives the IOP uses to engage new students (PDF, 405KB) Julian Guassardo 
• Belonging and engaging - factors for success in Physics (PDF, 2.5MB) Alison Voice, University of Leeds 

Regional meeting, 15 May 2019, Bristol:

• Experiences with running an experimental physics lab for students (PDF, 7.5MB) Craig McNeile
• Teaching Science Communication to Physics students - a case study (PDF, 1.5MB) Wendy Sadler
• International Mentoring – a new opportunity for physics undergraduates (PDF, 360KB) Walther Schwarzacher
• Realism in Practice: Implementation, Critique, and Scaling of Research Group-Based Taught Master's Learning (PDF, 861KB) Richard Lewis

Regional meeting, 26 November 2018, London:

• The Pro’s and Con’s of Active Learning of Physics (PDF, 495KB)
• Why are scientists afraid of employability? (PDF, 2MB)
• The Minerva Project: investigating student mathematical preparedness for science and engineering at university (PDF, 515KB)
• IOP support for higher education (PDF, 607KB)
• A global network for educators who share a passion for learning and teaching in higher education (PDF, 619KB)
• Towards programme level assessment in physics (PDF, 369KB)

Annual General Meeting, University of Sheffield, 22 August 2018:

• Minutes of our 2018 annual general meeting (PDF, 147KB)
• Chair’s Report (PDF, 107KB)

Variety in Chemistry Education (VICE)/ Physics Higher Education Conference (PHEC) satellite meeting on Demographic gaps in recruitment, retention and attainment, University of Sheffield, 22 August 2018:

• Effects of Workshop Group Gender Balance on Student Exam Performance (PDF, 290KB) Ross Galloway, University of Edinburgh 
• What factors are causing our students to drop-out? (PDF, 88KB) Sally Jordan, Open University 

Regional Meeting, University of Glasgow 12 June 2018:

• Active or passive or both? Looking inside the ‘black box’ of lectures (PDF, 687KB)
• Mature student Access to Physics and Engineering degrees (PDF, 888KB)
• Student reaction to a modified concept inventory (PDF, 887KB)
• Online team investigations in astronomy and planetary sciences at The Open University (PDF, 447KB)
• The SOPHia Project: Science Outreach for Promoting Physics to Female School Students (PDF, 215KB)
• Spaced Repetition – what use in Physics? (PDF, 835KB)

Technology-Enhanced Assessment, University of Edinburgh, 13 December 2016 - programme and abstracts (PDF, 237KB) by:

• Barry Ryan
• Paul Chin
• Morag Casey
• Sally Jordan
• Chris Sangwin

Developments in Teaching Physics Students’ Computer Programming Skills, University of Sheffield, 2 June 2015:

• An experiment in embedding and distributing programming throughout an undergraduate degree (PDF, 1.46MB)
• The Implementation of Computational Physics in a new Applied Physics degree (PDF, 2.5MB)
• Teaching physics with Python (PDF, 761KB)
• Programming with Arduino (PDF, 1MB)
• Creating usefulness when teaching programming (PDF 139KB)
• SEPnet Summer Placement Survey – what software do students use on placements and how well do physics courses prepare them for using industry software? (PDF, 115KB)

Promoting learning through technology, University of Edinburgh, 23 October 2013:

• Interactive screen experiments (PDF, 3.15MB)
• Developing and optimizing QuVis quantum mechanics simulations (PDF, 1.44MB)
• Student authored online vignettes (PDF, 3.87MB)
• Technological tools to support active learning (PDF, 2.73MB)
• Student-generated multiple-choice questions using PeerWise (PDF, 4.19MB)
• Creating, deploying, and making sense of an online course (PDF, 375MB)

Teaching of Thermodynamics Institute of Physics, 5 December 2012:

• Teaching Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics – to integrate or not? (PDF 131KB)
• Entropy in the teaching of thermal physics (PDF, 968KB)
• Entropy and Self-Organised Criticality (PDF, 130KB)
• Entropy – Is it what we think it is and how should we teach it? (PDF, 349KB)

Group events

Find group events on the IOP events site. 

Newsletter

March 2020 (PDF, 265KB)
August 2019 (PDF, 380KB)
March 2019 (PDF, 4.6MB)

Blogs

Our higher physics education blogs cover:

• policy
• events
• research 
• comment

Blogs are written by IOP staff, members and event speakers.

• Talking Teaching at the Institute of Physics 
• Simple net application program services 
• An Introduction to Arduino 
• Open Data Science Initiative 
• The C# Yellow Book 
• Wrestling with Python 

Committee and contacts

Chair	Dr Nicolas Labrosse, FInstP
Secretary	Dr Helen Heath, CPhys MInstP
Treasurer	Dr Tom Stallard, MInstP
Ordinary Member	Dr Emily Brunsden, MInstP
Ordinary Member	Miss Bethan Cornell, MInstP
Ordinary Member	Dr Andrea Jimenez Dalmaroni
Ordinary Member	Professor William Jones, CPhys MInstP
Ordinary Member	Dr Mark Jones, MInstP
Ordinary Member	Dr Edward Tarte, CPhys FInstP
Ordinary Member	Dr Alison Voice, CPhys MInstP
Ordinary Member	Dr Grainne Walshe, MInstP
Early Career Physicist	Mr Alex Crombie, MInstP

• Email: [email protected]
• Twitter: @IOPHEG