Tom BingAssociate Teaching Professor

• 2005-2008 NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
• 2006 Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award for the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Physical Sciences at the University of Maryland

Ph.D., University of Maryland, 2008

View publications on Google Scholar.

Research Area

Physics Education Research.

Research Interests

Physics Education Research is a relatively new field that seeks to apply a physicist's demands for quantitative rigor and reproducibility to the study of our physics students. How do our students think, and how are we to best help them learn?

My particular focus is mostly on the cognitive modeling of physics students, especially when they're in the midst of using mathematics in their physics work. If we want to describe how these students are thinking, what mental "pieces" should we talk in terms of? What's the grain size of these pieces? How do the dynamics of these pieces look as they interact with each other?

While our department does not offer a formal research program (leading to a Masters or Ph.D. degree) in Physics Education Research, I do work with all of our graduate students during their time as Teaching Assistants. All graduate students participate, with me, in a year-long seminar during their first two semesters of TA work. More advanced co-teaching opportunities are also often available for advanced TA work.