Ben Geller

Assistant Professor

Swarthmore College

Dept. of Physics & Astronomy

Pedagogical Methods Used

Peer Instruction / Think-Pair-Share, Collaborative problem-solving, Conceptually-oriented activities, Context-rich problems, Guided inquiry, Mathematically-focused activities, Experimentally-focused activities, Tutorials

Life Sciences Focus

I've worked on curricula related to random motion and entropy, fluid dynamics in living systems, the second law of thermodynamics and free energy, magnetic sensing and NMR/MRI, and modeling cellular and neural systems.

Education Research and Pedagogy Expertise

I'm particularly interested in questions of affect and engagement: how do the tasks we choose and the manner in which we implement them affect life science students' interest and engagement in intro physics?

Describe the courses that you teach for life sciences students

I teach a two-semester introductory physics course targeting life science and biochemistry students: Introductory Physics with Biochemical and Biomedical Applications

What is your approach to teaching physics for life science students?

My goal is to leverage students' backgrounds in biology and chemistry by exploring contexts for which those backgrounds are relevant, and to be explicit about the ways in which fundamental physics informs those disciplines.