Rate My Professor Keith Oliver

Dr. Keith Oliver serves as Associate Professor of Physics at Grand Valley State University, a position he has held since August 2009, following his initial appointment as Assistant Professor of Physics in Fall 2003. He earned his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, in 2003, and his B.S. from Utah State University in 1999. Oliver's research specializes in physics education, investigating fundamental questions about how and why physics is taught, the role of physics education in fostering students' cognitive skills development, and elements of the hidden curriculum within physics classrooms. These include epistemological considerations (how knowledge is validated), ontological aspects (the nature of reality), and gender roles.

Oliver has made notable contributions to physics pedagogy through peer-reviewed publications in The Physics Teacher. Key works include "3, 2, 1 ... Discovering Newton's Laws" (2017, co-authored with Joe Lutz, Kevin Sylvester, and Deborah Herrington), which details a reversed-order instructional approach emphasizing activities prior to conceptual definitions to improve student understanding of Newton's laws beyond rote memorization. Another is "Kinematics Card Sort Activity: Insight into Students’ Thinking" (2016, co-authored with Erin Berryhill and Deborah Herrington), offering diagnostic tools to reveal high school students' kinematic misconceptions. He has also supervised undergraduate research projects, such as Tim Steenwyk's "Development and Assessment of Materials which help students Apply concepts of Energy Conservation and Entropy" (2006) and Brandon Branch's "A Comparative Study of the Effects of Teaching Techniques on Student Learning During Lessons in Geometrical Optics" (2006). Actively engaged in educational programs, Oliver participates as faculty in the Pedagogical Content Knowledge for Engineering Teachers (PCKET) project, contributes to the Target Inquiry initiative, supports the Integrated Science Program, and co-presents workshops at the Roger That! Conference on topics including acoustics and science education methods. In 2024, he was honored with a service award at Grand Valley State University.