Ownership of Projects
Promoting students' sense of ownership over their work is an important aspect of learning, both in instructional and research settings. The importance of ownership is recognized by many instructors and advisors to be an important outcome of their students' efforts. However, for many instructors and researchers, what it means to have a sense of ownership may be understood only in broad and surface-level terms. In physics, one promising venue for engaging students in projects over which they feel ownership is the instructional lab course.
The Physics Frontiers Centers (PFC) program supports university-based centers and institutes where the collective efforts of a larger group of individuals can enable transformational advances in the most promising research areas. The program is designed to foster major breakthroughs at the intellectual frontiers of physics by providing needed resources such as combinations of talents, skills, disciplines, and/or specialized infrastructure, not usually available to individual investigators or small groups, in an environment in which the collective efforts of the larger group can be shown to be seminal to promoting significant progress in the science and the education of students. PFCs also include creative, substantive activities aimed at enhancing education, broadening participation of traditionally underrepresented groups, and outreach to the scientific community and general public.