Research Interests
Edit Yerushalmi heads the Physics Education Research Group at the Science Teaching Department, Weizmann Institute of Science. She holds an MSc in physics from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology and a PhD in science education from the Weizmann Institute. Prof. Yerushalmi serves as the scientific advisor for the national teacher center in Physics. She is the director of the “Research Projects in High School Physics" teacher preparation program at the Weizmann Institute. Her group develops and research "Gateway to Physics" - inquiry oriented curricular units for 9th grade Physics students, and accompanying professional development workshops. Prof. Yerushalmi leads the research based development of "Interdisciplinary Computational Science" - a new school subject equipping students with the modeling practices and conceptual tools that are fundamental to the understanding from a physics perspective many phenomena that are at the heart of chemistry, biology and materials science.
Prof. Yerushalmi research interests includes the development of students' reflective orientation towards learning, in various contexts (problem solving, inquiry projects, web web based diagnostic activities, etc.); the development of conceptual frameworks required for the introduction of contemporary interdisciplinary topics; the study of university faculty and TA's perceptions regarding the learning and teaching of problem solving and of high school teachers and students perceptions regarding inquiry in the physics classroom; and the design of professional development frameworks to support cooperative reflection of teachers on their instructional practice.