Since January 2002, Dr. Matthew E. Edwards has been a Professor of Physics at Alabama A&M University (AAMU), and served as the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences from 2007 to 2011. Prior to 2002, academic positions he held included associate professorships at Spelman College and Fayetteville State University, and a visiting associate professorship and adjunct faculty position at the University of Pittsburgh, and an assistant professorship at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. He has held several summer-faculty-research positions at Government Labs: the ROME Air Force Research Lab, NASA Langley Research Lab, and the Naval Research Lab. Dr. Edwards is a Condensed Matter physicist with expertise in (1) Density Functional theory/Solitons Wave theory/Finite Element Methods, (2) the materials of electrooptics, (3) pyroelectric, resistivity, and dielectric properties of crystals and nano-particles doped organic thin films, and (4) STEM Education. Dr. Edwards has more than 40-refereed papers and journal proceedings and has made at least 55 professional and administrative presentations. He has guided five students to advanced degrees: three to the Ph.D., and two to the Master’s degree, has served on more than 16 dissertation and thesis committees, and has peer-reviewed greater than 18 research manuscripts. Currently, he is guiding two Ph.D. degree students. He received the Ph.D. degree in condensed matter physics from Howard University, Washington, D.C., and has obtained numerous grants, honors and awards. He is the founding Director of IHSER (Institute of Higher Science Education and Research). Moreover, in 2015, he was a guest editor for the American Journal of Materials Science. Currently he sits on the Board of Directors of three science journals and one science education journal, and serves on the executive committee of the Alabama Academy of Science.
In academia, the benefits of Contextualized Critical Thinking occur effortlessly for a large segment of students. However, the rewards of critical thinking develop slowly, if at all for the remaining segment. The onset of cognitive thinking begins with simple memorizing, recording, valuing, comparing, and contrasting events, or situations—using the early categories of Bloom’s cognitive and affective domains. Once contextualization and advanced components of Bloom’s domains are added, the able-minded students, using constructivism with “mental mind structures,” without even thinking of them, develop a knack for critical thinking while other students remain languishing in states of inaptness. To that extent, we have developed mnemonics, acronyms, and other mental patterns, such as what we call “mental hooks,” “mental straights” and “mental S’s” to assist students in learning. All students, including the able-minded ones and the struggling groups, can benefit from these techniques in both disciplinary and interdisciplinary studies.
