Directors

Michael Feuer, Co-Director, is Dean of the Graduate School of Education and Human Development. Feuer is the president of the National Academy of Education, and has research interests including the economics of education, international and comparative education, standardized testing and scientific research in education. Since coming to GW, he has been instrumental in designing and launching DC-EdCORE, the Educational Consortium for Research and Evaluation, which is a partnership with AIR, Mathematica, RAND, Policy Studies Associates and Quill Research, aimed at providing useful information to guide policy for D.C. Public Schools.

Gerald Feldman, Co-Director, is a Professor in the Department of Physics where he teaches introductory physics courses and has dedicated 11 years as the undergraduate advisor in physics. He has worked with physics majors who opted to pursue secondary school teaching based on their GW experience as lab teaching assistants and evening tutors. He is a co-principal investigator on an NSF S-STEM grant (2013-18) to provide scholarships for incoming students intending to pursue STEM careers. He was responsible for launching the active learning collaborative “studio style” pedagogy known as SCALE-UP at GW. He has extensive experience in STEM pedagogy and is active in physics education research at GW, nationally and internationally.

Larry Medsker, Associate Director, is a Research Professor of Physics and has been involved with D.C.-area colleges and high schools for more than 25 years. At GW, he works extensively with faculty and students on physics education research projects, two of which are funded by NSF WIDER and S-STEM grants. A grant from GW allowed him to implement a research-based one-credit course to integrate freshmen into the STEM environment and encourage them to become involved in undergraduate research. During his career, he has conducted projects with D.C. teachers and a nonprofit group called Joint Educational Facilities (JEF), located in the high needs Anacostia area of Washington. Together with a JEF colleague, he developed—and for 13 years sustained—the annual D.C. Computer Science Conference for high school students to present their computing projects in a professional setting. This experience accelerated his passion for working with underrepresented students to provide a great learning environment. Medsker is now channeling his knowledge and love for the District of Columbia into the GWTeach program.

Jonathon Grooms, Co-Director, has a background in chemistry and physics education that includes several years as a physical science instructor with students across the K-12 continuum. Building from his classroom experiences, his research and scholarship centers on how teachers support their students’ engagement with the essential practices of science and engineering and how teachers’ conceptions of disciplinary practices of science influence classroom decisions regarding student instruction. Dr. Grooms is currently examining the role of scientific argumentation as an instructional emphasis and how such classroom contexts support students’ development of science proficiency. This work is strongly aligned with current standards movements such as the Next Generation Science Standards and the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics and English Language Arts.