Bridging the Knowledge-Practice Gap in Undergraduate Physics Education

The Physics Education Research (PER) community has shown that there are many aspects of teaching that can be systematically studied and improved using scientific methods. PER has also shown that a wide variety of instructors in a wide variety of institutions can consistently improve student learning by using research-based teaching practices. Like most fields, though, there is a substantial gap between the research-based knowledge that PER has developed about effective teaching and the actual practices of physics instructors. In this talk I will discuss this current state of research related to this grand challenge in Physics Education Research.