Impact of Pre-Reading: Louis Deslauriers, Georg Rieger, and Bing Dai are studying the impact of pre-reading on the sophistication of student questions during lectures. The study is taking place in Physics 101, 102 and 250. So far, results consistently show that pre-reading along with proper incentive leads to a doubling in the sophistication of student questions.
Math Diagnostics: Louis Deslauriers has developed a math diagnostic to assess upper-level physics students’ grasp of the math skills needed to succeed in the senior courses. This tool will be used to make judgments about curriculum and will feed discussions with the math department about their curriculum. This complements the math department’s own efforts on entrance-level testing of math skills.
Invention Activities and Lab Diagnostic: James Day & Doug Bonn, with further assistance from students Hiroko Nakahara and Brad Ramshaw, have been studying the effectiveness of invention activities to improve students’ data interpretation and analysis skills and understanding. This has included classroom observation, pre/post testing with a lab diagnostic and data-mining of students’ laboratory notebooks. The latter activity is being used to uncover evidence of transfer that may not be apparent in a multiple choice pre/post test. One paper on invention activities has been published in the November 2010 issue of the Physics Teacher.
Paper (The Physics Teacher, November 2010): Teaching Standard Deviation by Building from Student Invention
Poster (April 2010): Preparing Students for Learning Through Invention Activities
Poster (April 2010): Using Invention Tasks to Help Students Become Better Scientists
Poster (April 2009): Physics Lab Diagnostic & Teaching by Building from Student Invention
Effectiveness of Astronomy Tutorial Exercises: Peter Newbury has completed pre- and post-testing of ASTR 310 and ASTR 311 tutorial exercises, such as the Human Orrery (The Physics Teacher, 48, 9, 573-577 (2010)). The results were presented at AAS 216, May 23-27, 2010 in Miami, FLA. In Stair’s ASTR 311 (Fall 2010) students wrote the Light and Spectroscopy Concept Inventory pre- and post-test. The results are used to compare the impact of interactive, learner-centered instruction to similar introductory astronomy courses across the U.S.
Poster (April 2009): Exploring the Solar System with a Human Orrery
Impact of Learning Goals: Louis Deslauriers, Joshua Folk, and Georg Rieger are studying the impact of learning goals on student self assessment of their understanding in Physics 100 and Physics 101.
Peer Discussion Effect on Knowledge Retention: Louis Deslauriers and Joshua Folk are conducting a study in PHYS 450 aimed at comparing the effect of peer discussions and classic instruction on students’ knowledge retention.
Conceptual Inventories: Widespread deployment of conceptual inventories to assess student understanding of mechanics and electricity & magnetism concepts. These include an extensive vertical survey from first to fourth year using the new lab diagnostic, a similar vertical survey using the BEMA diagnostic, and use of the FCI in freshman classes and sophomore mechanics.
CLASS surveys: Widespread deployment of CLASS student attitudes about science surveys in all first year courses, with testing done in Sept., at the end of the first term, and again at the end of the second term.
