Paul D’Alessandris (Engineering Science and Physics) and David Weaver (Chandler-Gilbert Community College, AZ) recently served as workshop leaders for an Innovative Instructional Strategies for Introductory Physics workshop held at Austin Community College, Austin, TX, November 3-5. The intensive, three-day workshop, part of the National Science Foundation-funded Physics Workshop Project (https://www.physicsworkshops.org/), attracted physics faculty from around the country interested in making substantive changes to their introductory courses.
The workshop reviewed physics education research that indicates that the “traditional” lecture-style, passive learning model does not substantially impact the learning and understanding of most students who take introductory physics. This research also indicates that most students enter introductory physics with alternative conceptions to many of the basic concepts that are taught in introductory physics. For most students, passive learning techniques generally do not replace these misconceptions with concepts that are more consistent with our understanding of nature. D’Alessandris and Weaver then introduced several different active learning techniques that have substantially increased student conceptual understanding and problem-solving ability in introductory physics.
Paul D'Alessandris
Honors Institute
11/15/2011 |