Culture, history and society
Higher Education Group
This is an IOP special interest group, which is a community of IOP members focused on a particular discipline, application or area of interest.
Special interest groups allow members to connect and share knowledge and ideas. The IOP funds groups to deliver a range of activities including events, prizes and bursaries. All of our groups are driven by members.
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
Joining an IOP special interest group
For non-IOP members: Become a member now
Group physics prize
Lillian McDermott Award in Physics Education Research
The award recognises the most outstanding poster presentation in the field of physics education research at the annual meeting of the Institute of Physics Higher Education Group.
Find out more about the Lillian McDermott Award in Physics Education Research
Physics resources
Event resources
Annual General Meeting, online, 18 August 2021:
- Minutes of our annual general meeting (PDF, 130KB)
- Keynote presentation from Professor Sally Jordan (Open University): “Assessment at a distance: Past, present and lessons for the assessment of physics in the future” (PPT, 2.4MB)
Joint meeting with the Computational Physics Group: “Lessons Learned in Lockdown: Teaching Computational Physics in 2020 and Beyond”, online, 14 April 2021:
Videos of presentations are available on YouTube
- 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, 19 August 2020:
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 Pros and Cons 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:
Variety in Chemistry Education (VICE) and 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.
Newsletters
- Newsletter, June 2021 (PDF, 347KB)
- Newsletter, March 2020 (PDF, 265KB)
- Newsletter, August 2019 (PDF, 380KB)
- Newsletter, 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 programme 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
