Sarah LeGresley Rush - Research Mentor Spotlight

Bio:

Name: Sarah LeGresley Rush

Department: Physics & Astronomy

Describe your research/creative scholarship in a few sentences that we can all understand: 

My research areas of interest generally include anything that relates to education. Here are some questions that I think about. How people learn? How best to assess and improve assessments of learning? How can curriculum be improved to promote better learning and understanding of course material? How can course structures be adapted to better reflect and also improve student learning? In short, I aim to make education better!

Questions:

Q: How did you first get interested in doing research or creative work?

A : I do not remember a time when I did not want to teach. I always wanted to be a math teacher – so I did. As a math teacher, I became interested in curriculum and really understanding how people learn and how to improve and assess learning and understanding. I came to graduate school at KU (finally back to my hometown) and have continued with being a math teacher but now I teach applied math – physics.

Q: What does your research look like on a day-to-day basis? What do you spend most of your time doing?

A : Most of my days are spent teaching or thinking about learning and teaching. As a teaching professor here at KU, I have a teaching load of 80% with research and service each adding another 10%. So, if I’m not teaching or preparing to teach, I am often found reading education articles, writing tests, grading tests, or looking at the data from tests.

Q: What do students in your discipline learn by doing research that they wouldn’t learn by just taking classes?

A: Students and teachers may have very different goals. Students are often concerned about getting good grades will teachers are often concerned about student learning and understanding. Figuring out how to combine those goals together is a unique challenge for both students and instructors. Just being a student does not necessarily mean you know what it means to teach.

Q: What do you find to be the most exciting part of doing research or creative work? What makes this line of work meaningful and interesting to you?

A: In terms of teaching, I love to see students have that “Light Bulb” moment – that moment when they realize they understand. In terms of research, I found that certain groups of students learn better using a competency based grading system. How awesome is it that a grading system can be implemented in which no students see drops in course grades but some student groups see letter grade improvements and also lower rates of earning Ds, Fs, or withdraws?

Q: For many students, doing research or a larger creative project is the first time they have done work that routinely involves setbacks and the need to troubleshoot problems.  Can you tell us about a time that your research didn’t go as expected? Or about any tricks or habits that you’ve developed to help you stay resilient in the face of obstacles?

A:  Research is hard! Research with human subjects is definitely hard! Spring of 2020 was a big research experiment that I was working on that was cut short due to Covid-19. I call that semester and several semesters that followed Covid data What do you do? Accept that life happens. You do the best you can and continue on! Failure is ok! Very few of us walked the first time we tried. Very few of us biked the first time we tried. We have all failed, maybe cried (definitely me), but we all eventually picked ourselves up, and continued to try. Failure is absolutely a part of life and learning to deal with it is hard. Parents, coaches, mentors, bosses, friends, family, coworkers, etc. have all been there to pick me up. And, I hope to be that pick up person for my kids, family, friends, students, coworkers, etc.

Q: How do you spend your time outside of work?

A: Outside of work, I enjoy spending time with my family and friends. I spend time attending my kids’ school and sporting events as well as traveling to places to paddleboard, kayak, hike, and camp. Honestly, camping might be questionable on the enjoyment side but it definitely makes me appreciate my home.