Dr. Otero designs and investigates learning environments that involve learners in negotiation and risk-taking as a means for meeting multiple goals: (1) participation, belonging, and leadership; (2) articulating, revising, and implementing ideas; and (3) establishing agency through evidence and consensus. The populations of interest include university and high school students learning physics, high school teachers learning how to do research and teach physics inductively, and university faculty who seek to make modifications to their teaching practices or to cultural practices of their departments or universities. Relational leadership models together with structure/agency theory is used to address three types of learning: learning physics, learning about teaching physics, and institutional learning--social change. Through qualitative and quantitative approaches, Otero measures outcomes and create explanatory models for what factors are most influential in instigating desired change.
keywords
physics education research, history of physics education, Learning Assistants, US education reform, curriculum development, socio-cultural theory, theory of learning, Vygotskian theory, teacher learning, learning as experience, science education, education transformation, institutional change, diversity, equity, inclusion, cultural change, faculty development, teacher education
