About Solmaz Khodaeifaal

I, a science educator, was honoured and privileged to study and complete a doctoral program in the Faculty of Education—Educational Theory and Practice: Curriculum and Pedagogy—at Simon Fraser University. My doctoral thesis titled Curriculum, Pedagogy, and the Practical: From Waves to Quantum Physics is a reflection of my lived experiences (as a science student, physics and mathematics teacher, and science educator who considers lacks, gaps, issues, deficiencies, possibilities, opportunities, and successes), self-study, individual observations, actions, practices, recent changes, and challenges in education. I move a lens over my own lived experiences, attempt to shed light on the issues as well as causes and resonate with some incidents with regards to participation, preferences, and interests in the field of physics. It is thrilling for me to reflect on how my background knowledge, logic, past experiences and education in two different countries all together led me towards seeing differently and being enlightened—a new way of seeing—which is reflected through my doctoral study.

Before coming to Canada, I worked as a mathematics and physics teacher in public and private high schools in Tehran. I have a background in science, Applied Physics-Atomic, Education, and Business. I am currently teaching mathematical science focused on physics and also directing the Science Circles Program at Math Potentials, UBC campus, and online. Since 2011 I have been working with the International Baccalaureate Organization and its Diploma/Career-Related Program (IB). Throughout my master’s degree completion in the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, I was involved in several field-based projects and experiences. I also hold a master’s degree in Business Administration, MBA. Experience of working with young students and a developed combination of science, education, and management skills and knowledge enable me to leverage my own experience and support my academic and life success. 

My focus is on students’ engagement, their active roles in learning physics, and how adolescents can learn quantum mechanics at an early age. I strongly believe and emphasize that youths—8th and 9th graders—are able to develop their learning of quantum mechanics with a focussed, well-designed, and aimed curriculum on waves principles and basics of quantum physics—Wave-Quantum-Curriculum. I have designed and utilized this curriculum in an extracurricular and enrichment after-school science program in British Columbia. My observations from the science program acknowledge this. 

For the aim of teaching (for teachers and educators) and learning (for students, particularly adolescents) such a curriculum and the scientists’ science related to our contemporary life, we (teachers, educators, curriculum developers, and education leaders) have to employ a curriculum and pedagogy updated and adapted to the Fourth Industrial Revolution that can strongly support young students’ science learning in quantum mechanics. As I argue, quantum physics is the focal point and intersection of the physical, biological, and digital technologies and sciences of the 21st century.