This semester I am taking a new approach to teaching my Classical Mechanics I course. In the past this course has been entirely lecture-based, although I have a lot of one-on-one interaction with my students outside of class because it is a class taken only by physics majors (and there aren't that many of them). I have also used computational problems to get them some hands-on computing experience while they learn classical mechanics (hopefully a paper describing this aspect of the class will soon be published in the American Journal of Physics). But this semester I am mostly abandoning lecture. Only about one fourth of our class meetings will be lectures, and these will be devoted almost exclusively to computational demonstrations (where I show them how to use computation to analyze the dynamics of classical systems). At least part of these "lectures", which are given in the computer lab, are given over to the students running some computations themselves.
For another fourth of our class meetings I am using a few of the Intermediate Mechanics Tutorials developed by Brad Ambrose and Michael Wittman. Tutorials are worksheets that lead groups of students (my students work in pairs) through a series of questions that challenge misconceptions and elicit insights into important physical principles. These tutorials are then followed up with homework assignments that are designed to test student understanding of the tutorial material and build on the insights gained in the tutorials. Typically a pretest is given before the tutorial. I have found that we often need the full 75 minutes of the class period to complete the tutorials, even though they are allegedly designed for a 50 minute class.
The remaining half of the classes are devoted to student presentation of homework problems. This is a take-off on the Moore Method, which was a method for teaching mathematics developed by R. L. Moore at the University of Texas. The strict Moore Method forbids students from working together or using textbooks - they must prove theorems on their own and present their proofs in class. I deviate heavily from this strict version, as my students definitely use their textbook and can discuss the problems with each other (but not copy). Still, the focus of the class is the students presenting their solutions. Other students are expected to critique the solutions that are presented. The presentations are evaluated on content as well as on quality of presentation. Each assigned problem is presented by a student and all students must turn in written solutions for every problem. I've been guided by all of this by my fellow physicist Chuck Lane who pioneered this approach in our department last year.
I'm only halfway through the semester, but so far I would report both great success and some disheartening results. The disheartening thing was that I started with 11 students enrolled in the class but 5 of these withdrew because they thought the workload would be too great. However, the remaining 6 are doing quite well. I was very impressed with the performance of the class on the first exam. The homework presentations have improved steadily, both in terms of correctness and style. This has also led to similar improvements in the written homework (which has not generally been the case when I've taught this course in the past). The tutorials have also been great - I plan to use them more systematically the next time I teach the course. And I'm still doing the computational problems, which seem to be going pretty well.
The mixture of tutorials and homework presentations seems to give a nice balance to the class. There isn't an adversarial environment, because a lot of the time they are working together on things. One problem is that it is hard to get the students to really critique each other - they think they are going to hurt someone's feelings. And I am probably a bit to willing to jump in and give my own critique if the other students aren't willing. But they (and I) are getting better about this. I try to prod them when I can tell they want to say something. I periodically remind them that they aren't helping their friends by failing to point our errors in their solution. I know its wrong, so their presentation grade will still suffer, and if the errors aren't pointed out then their written solution will likely get a low grade as well. Pointing out the error will help them fix it and avoid a lower grade. They aren't totally convinced, but I'll keep working on them.
In summary, it's been a very experimental semester but it seems to be going very well. I will tinker with the balance of presentations, tutorials, and lectures but I will probably not get rid of any of the three (although I feel I definitely won't increase the lectures).
Friday, October 26, 2007
Sunday, October 7, 2007
PHY 111/112: General Physics I and II with Algebra
In my General Physics courses I use a mixture of Peer Instruction (a teaching method developed by Eric Mazur) and Just-In-Time Teaching (developed by Novak, Patterson, Gavrin, and Christian) with Physlets (Java applets with physics content developed by Wolfgang Christian and Mario Belloni). Prior to each class meeting students are expected to read the section of the text that will be discussed in the upcoming class. In addition, they must complete an online quiz, the deadline for which is about 2 hours prior to the class meeting time. The online quiz usually consists of 5 questions. The first two questions are generally somewhat challenging questions that cover material from the previous class meeting. Often these are Physlet Problems (problems in which students must interact with a Java applet to obtain the information necessary to solve the problem). Using Physlets helps students to connect their physics knowledge to real-world situations (as simulated by the Physlet) and also helps them to develop an operational understanding of physics terms (since they must frequently make "measurements" with the Physlet to obtain the needed information). The third question on the online quiz is usually taken directly from the reading assignment from the textbook. This question is designed to determine whether or not students have completed the assigned reading. The final two questions deal with material that has not yet been covered in class, but is slated to be covered in the upcoming class. These questions typically involve Physlet Illustrations or Explorations, which allow students to interact with a Java applet to develop their knowledge of a new concept. To answer the questions correctly the student must make use of the Physlet and pay close attention to what they see, but they do not generally have to already possess a solid understanding of the relevant concepts. These last two questions provide a lead into the class discussions, as well as an illustration of what the student has read in the text.
During the hour or so prior to each class I review the student responses to the online quiz questions. This allows me to determine which questions the class as a whole seemed to understand, and which questions gave the class trouble. This helps me to target the discussion in the upcoming class to focus on those concepts that are causing the greatest difficulty for the most students. I typically start class by discussing one of the Physlet Problems from the online quiz, and then I give a short lecture in which I present the key concepts that will be the focus of the day's class. I often use a Physlet (shown to the whole class using a computer projection system) to illustrate key points. Sometimes the Physlet will be one that students used to answer one of the last two online quiz questions, sometimes it will be one they have not seen before.
This part of the class usually last about 20 minutes, but sometimes takes longer.
The next 20-25 minutes is spent doing Peer Instruction. Students are asked a series of conceptual multiple-choice questions. They respond to these questions using an electronic response system. I encourage students to discuss the questions with their neighbors, and I also walk around the room and discuss the questions with students. Once the entire class has responded to a particular questions I display a histogram of the responses on the screen. If a significant majority chose the correct answer we usually move on after a brief statement from me about why that answer is correct. If a significant fraction of the class has answered incorrectly, I ask students to try again and usually provide a few hints about how to approach the question. We usually cover about 4-5 questions in this way.
If there is time remaining in the class I usually demonstrate the solution of a calculation-oriented problem. Most of the time I show them how to set up the required calculations, but I don't work out the solutions all the way. However, I do post a fully-worked solution to this demo problem immediately after class so that students can review this demo before attempting their own homework.
Homework assignments consist of calculation-oriented problems of my own devising, with a few conceptual questions mixed in (but not designated as conceptual - they are not readily distinguishable from calculation-oriented problems at a glance). A typical assignment consists of two questions, each of which has multiple parts. The idea is to have students examine a single scenario and, on the basis of a little bit of information, answer a series of questions related to that scenario. These homework assignments are due at the beginning of the next class period. The homework is graded during the class meeting by a student grader (almost always a physics major). The grading is essentially binary for each part of a question, but I have developed a very lenient scoring system that is designed to encourage students to attempt every part of each question. If a student tries each part of each question they can score no lower than 7 out of 10 (with scores increasing from there on the basis of correctness). Students can then pick up their graded homework as they leave class, which provides them with immediate feedback on their work. I post homework solutions online once the homework has been graded, so students have the opportunity to look at my solutions to try to understand any questions they missed.
Labs for the class focus on improving student understanding of physics concepts. Very few of the labs are about verifying the physical principles presented in class. Instead they provide an opportunity to for students to work extensively with the principles in order to develop a deeper understanding of what they mean and how they apply in various situations. The goal is to help students internalize these concepts.
Tests are given during the lab period so that students have two hours to complete the test. The tests include both conceptual and calculation problems (typically about 40% conceptual, 60% calculation - although I emphasize to students that calculation problems are ALSO conceptual). The goal of the tests is to assess students' conceptual understanding of physics as well as their ability to apply the concepts in solving problems. Almost all questions have a specific correct answer, although occasionally students are asked to estimate.
I typically have 40 students in the General Physics I course, and about 25 in the General Physics II course. Lab sections have a maximum of 20 students. Both classes typically meet three times a week for 50 minutes each, with one two hour lab period. Most of the students in these classes are biology or animal science majors and a large number of these students plan to go on to professional schools (medicine, veterinary medicine, physical therapy, dentistry, pharmacy, etc.).
I use the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) to assess the effectiveness of my teaching in General Physics I. I was initially seeing pre-test to post-test normalized gains of about 35-40% (well above what is typical for traditional lecture courses, which tend to show normalized gains around 25%) using the method described above, but without the Physlets. Last year I used Physlets for the first time and my FCI normalized gains increased to 47% (basically double the gains seen in traditional lecture courses). I also receive reports from many students that they do very well on the physical science section of the MCAT. I have also heard reports from students who have taken MCAT review courses and say that they already know all the physics, while students who have taken physics at other institutions don't know any of it. So while there is still room for improvement, I have reason to believe that the teaching methods described above are effective in this case.
During the hour or so prior to each class I review the student responses to the online quiz questions. This allows me to determine which questions the class as a whole seemed to understand, and which questions gave the class trouble. This helps me to target the discussion in the upcoming class to focus on those concepts that are causing the greatest difficulty for the most students. I typically start class by discussing one of the Physlet Problems from the online quiz, and then I give a short lecture in which I present the key concepts that will be the focus of the day's class. I often use a Physlet (shown to the whole class using a computer projection system) to illustrate key points. Sometimes the Physlet will be one that students used to answer one of the last two online quiz questions, sometimes it will be one they have not seen before.
This part of the class usually last about 20 minutes, but sometimes takes longer.
The next 20-25 minutes is spent doing Peer Instruction. Students are asked a series of conceptual multiple-choice questions. They respond to these questions using an electronic response system. I encourage students to discuss the questions with their neighbors, and I also walk around the room and discuss the questions with students. Once the entire class has responded to a particular questions I display a histogram of the responses on the screen. If a significant majority chose the correct answer we usually move on after a brief statement from me about why that answer is correct. If a significant fraction of the class has answered incorrectly, I ask students to try again and usually provide a few hints about how to approach the question. We usually cover about 4-5 questions in this way.
If there is time remaining in the class I usually demonstrate the solution of a calculation-oriented problem. Most of the time I show them how to set up the required calculations, but I don't work out the solutions all the way. However, I do post a fully-worked solution to this demo problem immediately after class so that students can review this demo before attempting their own homework.
Homework assignments consist of calculation-oriented problems of my own devising, with a few conceptual questions mixed in (but not designated as conceptual - they are not readily distinguishable from calculation-oriented problems at a glance). A typical assignment consists of two questions, each of which has multiple parts. The idea is to have students examine a single scenario and, on the basis of a little bit of information, answer a series of questions related to that scenario. These homework assignments are due at the beginning of the next class period. The homework is graded during the class meeting by a student grader (almost always a physics major). The grading is essentially binary for each part of a question, but I have developed a very lenient scoring system that is designed to encourage students to attempt every part of each question. If a student tries each part of each question they can score no lower than 7 out of 10 (with scores increasing from there on the basis of correctness). Students can then pick up their graded homework as they leave class, which provides them with immediate feedback on their work. I post homework solutions online once the homework has been graded, so students have the opportunity to look at my solutions to try to understand any questions they missed.
Labs for the class focus on improving student understanding of physics concepts. Very few of the labs are about verifying the physical principles presented in class. Instead they provide an opportunity to for students to work extensively with the principles in order to develop a deeper understanding of what they mean and how they apply in various situations. The goal is to help students internalize these concepts.
Tests are given during the lab period so that students have two hours to complete the test. The tests include both conceptual and calculation problems (typically about 40% conceptual, 60% calculation - although I emphasize to students that calculation problems are ALSO conceptual). The goal of the tests is to assess students' conceptual understanding of physics as well as their ability to apply the concepts in solving problems. Almost all questions have a specific correct answer, although occasionally students are asked to estimate.
I typically have 40 students in the General Physics I course, and about 25 in the General Physics II course. Lab sections have a maximum of 20 students. Both classes typically meet three times a week for 50 minutes each, with one two hour lab period. Most of the students in these classes are biology or animal science majors and a large number of these students plan to go on to professional schools (medicine, veterinary medicine, physical therapy, dentistry, pharmacy, etc.).
I use the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) to assess the effectiveness of my teaching in General Physics I. I was initially seeing pre-test to post-test normalized gains of about 35-40% (well above what is typical for traditional lecture courses, which tend to show normalized gains around 25%) using the method described above, but without the Physlets. Last year I used Physlets for the first time and my FCI normalized gains increased to 47% (basically double the gains seen in traditional lecture courses). I also receive reports from many students that they do very well on the physical science section of the MCAT. I have also heard reports from students who have taken MCAT review courses and say that they already know all the physics, while students who have taken physics at other institutions don't know any of it. So while there is still room for improvement, I have reason to believe that the teaching methods described above are effective in this case.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Minutes of Sep. 11 ALaB Meeting
- How can we link to documents (such as class handouts, syllabi, etc.) on this blog? We will need to create a separate web site that serves as a repository for these materials and then we can include links to those materials in blog posts.
- Currently the blog can be read and commented on by anyone. It would be helpful if we could all receive email alerts when posts or comments are made.
- Would a discussion thread serve our purpose better than a blog?
- Brief discussion on Bloom's Taxonomy, which lists categories of cognitive learning: Knowledge, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, Evaluation. Do some disciplines need to spend more time on, say, the Knowledge category in order to help students progress while other disciplines can jump straight to Application? This could explain why some disciplines have been resistant to active learning approaches.
- Update on EAF grant: over $8000 remaining, only one person has not used their travel money. We should have enough to fund two consultants. Ron will try to find someone involved with EAF to serve as a consultant.
- Ron Thornton's visit: we will ask him to sit in on a few classes, meet with the ALaB group, and also give a presentation that will be open to all faculty. Need to find best dates for his visit: probably a Monday/Tuesday in late October or Early November.
- Where should the ALaB group go from here? We have become increasingly interdisciplinary, which is good but presents some challenges. We can still get ideas from each other, even if we then have to apply those ideas in a new context/discipline. Much of what we discuss relates to strategies that are not discipline-specific (although they may be better suited to some disciplines than others). The group can still play an important role in supporting faculty who are just starting to experiment with active learning.
- We need to find a way to pool the resources of many disciplines and combine them. Currently there are several people using active learning strategies, but they are operating in separate "silos" and don't work with each other. There might be much to gain by getting these different groups (Ed Psych, Teacher Ed, Science, Humanities, Business, etc.) talking with each other. This is one important role that our group could take on.
- Different disciplines may have different standards for what is recognized as innovative or progressive teaching methods. In older disciplines like science where lecture has been the norm, anything that is not lecture may be seen as innovative. In other disciplines this is not the case. For example, case studies have almost always been used in Marketing so this approach is actually very "traditional" in that field.
- Grant Possibilities: the interdisciplinary nature of the group makes it hard to go for an NSF grant for the entire group, but it would still be feasible for the science faculty to pursue that option. There may be other granting agencies that would be happy to fund an interdisciplinary project (Keck, Lily, AT&T, etc.). The goal of a new grant would be to use our growing expertise to train others by holding workshops, developing web resources, etc. We would probably need outside help for this at first, and later we could do it on our own.
Friday, September 7, 2007
CHM 102: Introduction to Chemistry
Well, I'm new to blogging. (This is my first time making a post to a blog -- ever.) But I'm also new to teaching chemistry for non-science majors. I've taught General Chemistry ("GenChem") for ten years (15, if you count my years teaching while I was in grad school) and I've taught Physical Chemistry ("P-Chem") for the last eight since I'd joined the faculty at Berry. Needless to say (while I'm certainly no Mathematician -- much of what my friends talk about at lunchtime I simply have to tune out if it becomes "too mathematical"), I like the more mathematical and abstract studies of chemistry. So I was worried when the Chemistry Department decided (along with my consent, of course) that I'd be teaching CHM 102, which is Berry's General Education chemistry course for non-science majors. I didn't know if teaching mathematically-illiterate students (this is to say, students who have a hard time with high school algebra) would have much of an appeal to me. But so far, so good. In the first two weeks of the semester, I've been able (I believe) to teach my students some "real chemistry". And I've been having some fun doing so.
Over the last four years, I've been teaching GenChem (both semesters, the second of which is often referred to as "Baby P-Chem") using Process-Oriented Guided-Inquiry Learning (POGIL -- please, visit www.pogil.org to learn more). In such a classroom, I have my students learn the important concepts of chemistry while working in small, self-managed teams on a ChemActivity. (POGILers prefer "ChemActivity" to "worksheet". I've even heard of some POGILers who call them "funsheets" instead!) A ChemActivity has the students explore a "model" (perhaps real, perhaps virtual data that models a chemical or physical phenomenon), then answer critical thinking questions about the model to help them invent a concept or develop their understanding of the concept, and then they work out a number of exercises in which the concept is applied. At the end of each class, I ask my students to do some metacognition and assess their understanding of what they were supposed to have learned that day. Each student of a team has one or more roles: there's a Recorder (who fills out the Recorder's Report, which contains the team's official answers to the questions and exercises within the ChemActivity); there's a Strategy Analyst (who makes sure that the team is staying on task and using their classtime appropriately, and this individual is also assigned the task of filling out a form that helps him/her assess the team's learning that day); there's a Recorder (who is called upon to present his/her team's answer to questions and/or exercises on the whiteboard of the classroom for all the class to benefit from); and there's either a Spokesperson (who represents the team to the other teams and to me as the course instructor) or a Technologist (the one who is responsible for using his/her calculator when such a device is needed to complete exercises).
While the students are working on the ChemActivities in their groups, I monitor each team's conversations and help teams that are struggling on questions and exercises. While I'm not the best at holding my tongue, I do what I can to help lead the students to "the right answer" without just giving it to them. When a mini-lecture would benefit the class, I provide one.
So this semester, I'm not teaching GenChem. I'm teaching CHM 102, the "non-majors' class". But I wanted to teach it using POGIL. And, perhaps surprisingly, it seems to be working. Each day we start with a ~10-minute quiz which tests the students on (1) their understanding of one or more concepts that hopefully they learned during the previous class period and (2) their understanding of one or more really important topics that was in their reading assignment since the previous class period. And then I have the students assemble into teams (usually consisting of three people, due to the fact that I'm teaching the class in a room with "stadium seating" and I feel that sitting three-abreast allows for a well-functioning team) and they go to work on a ChemActivity. I've found that sometimes I can adapt my GenChem activities into a CHM 102 activity without too much effort. But I've already had to write two (out of five) "from scratch". So I know that I'll be investing a considerable amount of time during the semester. (But, to be fair, I was awarded a Berry summer course development grant and I didn't use my summertime to develop materials. Oops! So I'm paying for my "lazy" summer now.)
Because CHM 102 is offered during 75-minute timeslots for class periods, I've decided that I'll be providing a short lecture between the quiz and the first activity, and if during a day the students will be doing more than one ChemActivity I'll give them a mini-lecture between activities. Actually, I've already seen how lecturing every now-n-then is necessary in order to give the students a foundation in order to understand a concept that the activity they're about to work through will present to them. But I'm trying not to lecture any more than I have to.
I've adopted the American Chemical Society's Chemistry in Context: Applying Chemistry to Society as the textbook. In each chapter, the student reads to learn about real-life challenges that we as a society face (e.g., global warming) and how an understanding of chemistry might serve to give us some answers to the World's problems. I've found it to be very interesting so far. Just yesterday, I had my non-majors generating Lewis dot structures of molecules on the fourth day of class -- if I were teaching GenChem I, we wouldn't have gotten to that for several more weeks!
One of the General Education goals at Berry College is to help students be able to effectively communicate their understanding of scientific inquiry. So at the end of the semester, each student will be giving a ~15-minute PowerPoint presentation of an aspect of chemistry. They'll explain why an understanding of the issue is important to "the average Joe", and they'll explain how an understanding of chemistry could be used to help "make the World a better place". To get them ready for the end-of-semester presentation, they will have to get a research project prospectus approved by me and write up a formal report of their research. I am looking forward to the presentations, and I hope that the class as a whole will enjoy learning about what their classmates found intriguing and worth researching.
To sum up, I believe that my non-majors are learning some interesting chemistry so far and will continue to do so throughout the semester. And I'm having a bunch of fun teaching the non-majors' class -- I really didn't think that I would. I just hope that I can keep my energy levels up, because teaching the class without using lecture as my primary method of instruction does require a considerable time investment on my part. But I believe firmly that the non-majors are going to have a much more enjoyable time throughout the semester while learning about chemistry.
I'll keep you posted!
Over the last four years, I've been teaching GenChem (both semesters, the second of which is often referred to as "Baby P-Chem") using Process-Oriented Guided-Inquiry Learning (POGIL -- please, visit www.pogil.org to learn more). In such a classroom, I have my students learn the important concepts of chemistry while working in small, self-managed teams on a ChemActivity. (POGILers prefer "ChemActivity" to "worksheet". I've even heard of some POGILers who call them "funsheets" instead!) A ChemActivity has the students explore a "model" (perhaps real, perhaps virtual data that models a chemical or physical phenomenon), then answer critical thinking questions about the model to help them invent a concept or develop their understanding of the concept, and then they work out a number of exercises in which the concept is applied. At the end of each class, I ask my students to do some metacognition and assess their understanding of what they were supposed to have learned that day. Each student of a team has one or more roles: there's a Recorder (who fills out the Recorder's Report, which contains the team's official answers to the questions and exercises within the ChemActivity); there's a Strategy Analyst (who makes sure that the team is staying on task and using their classtime appropriately, and this individual is also assigned the task of filling out a form that helps him/her assess the team's learning that day); there's a Recorder (who is called upon to present his/her team's answer to questions and/or exercises on the whiteboard of the classroom for all the class to benefit from); and there's either a Spokesperson (who represents the team to the other teams and to me as the course instructor) or a Technologist (the one who is responsible for using his/her calculator when such a device is needed to complete exercises).
While the students are working on the ChemActivities in their groups, I monitor each team's conversations and help teams that are struggling on questions and exercises. While I'm not the best at holding my tongue, I do what I can to help lead the students to "the right answer" without just giving it to them. When a mini-lecture would benefit the class, I provide one.
So this semester, I'm not teaching GenChem. I'm teaching CHM 102, the "non-majors' class". But I wanted to teach it using POGIL. And, perhaps surprisingly, it seems to be working. Each day we start with a ~10-minute quiz which tests the students on (1) their understanding of one or more concepts that hopefully they learned during the previous class period and (2) their understanding of one or more really important topics that was in their reading assignment since the previous class period. And then I have the students assemble into teams (usually consisting of three people, due to the fact that I'm teaching the class in a room with "stadium seating" and I feel that sitting three-abreast allows for a well-functioning team) and they go to work on a ChemActivity. I've found that sometimes I can adapt my GenChem activities into a CHM 102 activity without too much effort. But I've already had to write two (out of five) "from scratch". So I know that I'll be investing a considerable amount of time during the semester. (But, to be fair, I was awarded a Berry summer course development grant and I didn't use my summertime to develop materials. Oops! So I'm paying for my "lazy" summer now.)
Because CHM 102 is offered during 75-minute timeslots for class periods, I've decided that I'll be providing a short lecture between the quiz and the first activity, and if during a day the students will be doing more than one ChemActivity I'll give them a mini-lecture between activities. Actually, I've already seen how lecturing every now-n-then is necessary in order to give the students a foundation in order to understand a concept that the activity they're about to work through will present to them. But I'm trying not to lecture any more than I have to.
I've adopted the American Chemical Society's Chemistry in Context: Applying Chemistry to Society as the textbook. In each chapter, the student reads to learn about real-life challenges that we as a society face (e.g., global warming) and how an understanding of chemistry might serve to give us some answers to the World's problems. I've found it to be very interesting so far. Just yesterday, I had my non-majors generating Lewis dot structures of molecules on the fourth day of class -- if I were teaching GenChem I, we wouldn't have gotten to that for several more weeks!
One of the General Education goals at Berry College is to help students be able to effectively communicate their understanding of scientific inquiry. So at the end of the semester, each student will be giving a ~15-minute PowerPoint presentation of an aspect of chemistry. They'll explain why an understanding of the issue is important to "the average Joe", and they'll explain how an understanding of chemistry could be used to help "make the World a better place". To get them ready for the end-of-semester presentation, they will have to get a research project prospectus approved by me and write up a formal report of their research. I am looking forward to the presentations, and I hope that the class as a whole will enjoy learning about what their classmates found intriguing and worth researching.
To sum up, I believe that my non-majors are learning some interesting chemistry so far and will continue to do so throughout the semester. And I'm having a bunch of fun teaching the non-majors' class -- I really didn't think that I would. I just hope that I can keep my energy levels up, because teaching the class without using lecture as my primary method of instruction does require a considerable time investment on my part. But I believe firmly that the non-majors are going to have a much more enjoyable time throughout the semester while learning about chemistry.
I'll keep you posted!
Saturday, September 1, 2007
PHY 101: Introduction to the Physical World
This post describes my PHY 101 course, which is a General Education science course for non-science majors. I taught this course using a very traditional lecture approach (with PowerPoint!) for a few years, then started incorporating a few in-class group assignments. But I have become increasingly disenchanted with lecturing as a result of reading the Physics Education Research Literature and experimenting with active learning methods. So in the Summer of 2005 I redesigned my course from the ground up. Most of the active-learning materials available for a liberal arts physics course focus on practical aspects of physics, like electronics and optics. As a more philosophically-inclined physicist I wanted to teach my students about quantum mechanics and special relativity (as well as basic mechanics, etc.). So I created a series of 23 hands-on group activities to go along with 10 laboratory exercises. These activities use inexpensive materials and a variety of interactive computer simulations. The entire course is now activity-based. Students are given a worksheet that guides them through the activity or laboratory exercise, and they spend essentially all of their class time working in groups to complete the activity. I use online reading quizzes to ensure that students come to class having read the text, and I use homework from the textbook (Hobson's Physics: Concepts and Connections) to make sure they follow up on the ideas introduced in the activities. My tests are somewhat traditional, but heavily weighted toward conceptual questions (though still with some calculation required).
My first trial of this new method was in Spring 2006. Things went pretty well, but I was dissatisfied on two counts. First, my teaching evaluations were less than stellar (not bad, but not what I had come to expect). Second, and more important, I administered the EBAPS survey to my students at the beginning and end of the courses and saw no noticeable change. The EBAPS is designed to measure student attitudes about the nature of science and learning science. Although I am convinced that my activities did a reasonably good job of teaching my students physics concepts, these activities did little to change their perceptions of how science works.
For Spring 2007 I revamped several of the activities (cutting Special Relativity, sigh, but adding more on the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Quantum Mechanics). I also started the semester with two lectures (yes, lectures) on the Philosophy of Science and then incorporated questions in many of the activities that asked students to reflect on the experiments they had performed from a philosophical perspective. In addition, students were required to conduct an experiment of their own devising and report the results to the class as well as research a potentially pseudoscientific topic and present an evaluation of the topic to the class. The results were fantastic. Outstanding student evaluations and significant gains on the EBAPS in two categories (Nature of Scientific Knowledge and Evolving Knowledge) and no losses in the others. For Spring 2008 I plan to beef up the activities on the Second Law, but otherwise I will probably stay the course.
I recently gave a presentation on this class at a meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers. You can find out more about the class by visiting the web page I created to supplement that presentation. If you want to know more, please send me an email or just ask a question by leaving a comment.
My first trial of this new method was in Spring 2006. Things went pretty well, but I was dissatisfied on two counts. First, my teaching evaluations were less than stellar (not bad, but not what I had come to expect). Second, and more important, I administered the EBAPS survey to my students at the beginning and end of the courses and saw no noticeable change. The EBAPS is designed to measure student attitudes about the nature of science and learning science. Although I am convinced that my activities did a reasonably good job of teaching my students physics concepts, these activities did little to change their perceptions of how science works.
For Spring 2007 I revamped several of the activities (cutting Special Relativity, sigh, but adding more on the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Quantum Mechanics). I also started the semester with two lectures (yes, lectures) on the Philosophy of Science and then incorporated questions in many of the activities that asked students to reflect on the experiments they had performed from a philosophical perspective. In addition, students were required to conduct an experiment of their own devising and report the results to the class as well as research a potentially pseudoscientific topic and present an evaluation of the topic to the class. The results were fantastic. Outstanding student evaluations and significant gains on the EBAPS in two categories (Nature of Scientific Knowledge and Evolving Knowledge) and no losses in the others. For Spring 2008 I plan to beef up the activities on the Second Law, but otherwise I will probably stay the course.
I recently gave a presentation on this class at a meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers. You can find out more about the class by visiting the web page I created to supplement that presentation. If you want to know more, please send me an email or just ask a question by leaving a comment.
Welcome to ALaB!
The Active Learning Group at Berry College is an interdisciplinary group of faculty who are exploring active learning strategies for teaching college courses. Most members of the group have been using some form of active learning (or inquiry-based learning, or problem-based learning, etc.) in the classroom for a few years. Some members of the group are just getting started in trying to incorporate active learning into their courses. Although the group was initially composed of faculty from the sciences (including Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, and Psychology) it has expanded to include faculty from a much wider range of disciplines (Philosophy, Education, Marketing, etc.). The goal of the Active Learning Group is to promote a culture of active learning at Berry College, so that instructors feel comfortable using active learning methods and students feel comfortable taking courses that are taught using these methods. We have seen first-hand how active learning strategies can improve student learning in our classes.
ALaB initially received funding from the Educational Advancement Foundation. This funding enabled the initial members of the group to travel to conferences and workshops to receive training in active learning strategies, as well as to build a library of print resources related to active learning. In addition, this funding provided the initial group of faculty the time to develop active learning components for their courses. The ALaB group meets periodically to discuss reading assignments selected from our active learning library, as well as to discuss our own experiences in the classroom. So far the results have been very positive. Our work has been presented at a variety of national conferences, including Legacy of R. L. Moore Conferences, the POGIL National Meeting, and meetings of the American Association of Physics Teachers.
The purpose of this blog is to provide a forum for ALaB participants to post information about the active learning strategies they have used in their courses. In addition, ALaB members will be encouraged to post discussions about the challenges and benefits of using active learning. It is our hope that this blog will serve as a resource not only for ALaB participants but also for other faculty who are considering or already using active learning methods in their courses. Please feel free to comment on the posts. We would be delighted to hear from others who are interested in using or promoting active learning!
ALaB initially received funding from the Educational Advancement Foundation. This funding enabled the initial members of the group to travel to conferences and workshops to receive training in active learning strategies, as well as to build a library of print resources related to active learning. In addition, this funding provided the initial group of faculty the time to develop active learning components for their courses. The ALaB group meets periodically to discuss reading assignments selected from our active learning library, as well as to discuss our own experiences in the classroom. So far the results have been very positive. Our work has been presented at a variety of national conferences, including Legacy of R. L. Moore Conferences, the POGIL National Meeting, and meetings of the American Association of Physics Teachers.
The purpose of this blog is to provide a forum for ALaB participants to post information about the active learning strategies they have used in their courses. In addition, ALaB members will be encouraged to post discussions about the challenges and benefits of using active learning. It is our hope that this blog will serve as a resource not only for ALaB participants but also for other faculty who are considering or already using active learning methods in their courses. Please feel free to comment on the posts. We would be delighted to hear from others who are interested in using or promoting active learning!
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