Stephen Sekula
46 posts
I am very proud to report that SMU President’s Scholar and Physics Major, Jared Burleson, has been selected to receive a Schwarzman Scholar award. The details are available in the SMU News release, which was reprinted by the Department of Physics. Since 2018, Jared has worked with me in the […]
Prof. Jodi Cooley and I were very humbled and honored to be included in this year’s “Science in the City” program, hosted by the Dallas Morning News. The series is a partnership among The Dallas Morning News, SMU, UT Southwestern Medical Center, the Dallas-based education nonprofit talkSTEM, the Perot Museum […]
I had a talk abstract accepted to the fall meeting of the American Physical Society’s Division of Nuclear Physics. However, the confirmation email that arrived on August 31 went unseen by me, and despite not confirming my talk I was put on the schedule for a mini-symposium on October 31. […]
In this article, we outline how we implemented an honors-level add-on course to complement standard university-level introductory physics courses. We explain why it was necessary to do this. We then explain the strategies we have adopted for attracting students, engaging them, and assessing their performance. Our goal in creating this […]
I was asked in the spring to put together a video for new, first-year undergraduate students, touring them through the SMU Physics Department. Please enjoy this virtual tour, from my perspective as a faculty member in the department. I am excited to welcome students, new and returning, to SMU this […]
I didn’t mean for a big gap from episode 4 (“Dangerous Beauty”), but COVID-19 and the reality of digital teaching intervened. A lot has happened since that episode. Here, in the conclusion of this two-part series on symmetry, I reflect on the realities we face in going back to school, […]
Good digital teaching needs a number of skills: Coordination: you need to be able to move between technologies to make your point and keep the flow of the session going smoothly. Good tools enable easier coordination. Polish: more than you might in the classroom, where students feel they “get more […]