CEHS Researcher Receives National Academy of Education Fellowship

An award-winning professor has been named a National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral fellow, considered to be one of the topmost distinctions for an education professor. He will use the research opportunity to study how students think about and explain physics while experiencing motion in the “messy” real world.

Victor Lee, an assistant professor in Utah State University’s Instructional Technology and Learning Sciences Department, was selected for the fellowship by the National Academy for Education.

Lee is the first faculty member from USU ever to receive the distinction. The $55,000 award will support his research over a period of two years as he works half-time on the project and devotes the other half to teaching responsibilities.

He will examine how students think and learn about physics while enacting and reflecting on motion in the real world — like throwing a ball or dropping an object.

He is building on ideas already being developed by educators and innovators, who have set up virtual experiences that allow students to interact with objects in motion, or even play the part of the object — all in a game-like setting.

But Lee wants to take it a step further by looking at real objects, real motions and real student perceptions as they are happening and as they are changing. One of the barriers to understanding physics is that the real world isn’t much like a laboratory or virtual environment. A student throwing a baseball will deal with variables like the Earth’s gravity, wind currents, air friction and his own error. In school, a student thinking about that throw doesn’t usually get to consider how the throw physically feels to him and how it fits with or defies his expectations.

“Our bodies have interesting properties and make interesting insights,” Lee said. “But how do they interact with our more explicitly articulate ways we are taught to think about the world? We are at a point where we want to develop and launch new, interactive technologies to help make those connections, but we don’t yet have the research base to tell us what is likely to happen.”

The funds for the NAE fellowship are provided by the Spencer Foundation, a widely respected philanthropic organization committed to the improvement of education through research.

“This award confirms what we in the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services already know — that Dr. Lee is an exceptional researcher with a rapidly accelerating early career trajectory,” said Beth Foley, dean of the Emma Eccles Jones College of Education and Human Services at USU. “We are very proud to have him representing our college on the national stage.”

Much of Lee’s research has involved learning and physical motion. He previously received the National Science Foundation CAREER award, the top award for young faculty offered by the National Science Foundation.

In 2013 he received the Jan Hawkins Award for early career contributions to humanistic research and scholarship in learning technologies. The recognition followed his work with using fitness technology to help elementary school students learn about data collection and statistical analysis.

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Contact: Victor Lee, victor.lee@usu.edu

Writer: JoLynne Lyon, 435-797-1463