[College and TYC faculty: Here's a forwarded message from Michael Politano
of Arizona State University. Mike asks that you give it to interested
colleagues.
- Jane Jackson]
WORKSHOP ON "REMODELING UNIVERSITY PHYSICS" (RUP), JUNE 4-22
Modeling Instruction, which has been so successful at the high school
level, has now been adapted to the COLLEGE level. Normalized (Hake) gains
on the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) for remodeled university physics
courses exceed the best gains achieved in the high school program, and are
typically a factor of two larger than gains in university physics courses
taught using traditional instruction. Mean scores on the Mechanics
Baseline Test (MBT) are typically from 75% to 80%.
For 2 and 4-year college/university faculty who want to be introduced to
Modeling Instruction at the college level, Arizona State University (ASU)
will hold NSF-funded 3-week summer workshops in 2001 and 2002. The workshop
this year will be held from June 4-22, 2001. An online brochure about the
workshop and application form may be found on our website: http://modeling.asu.edu/rup_workshop
Briefly, Modeling Instruction in introductory physics classes at the
college level involves the following key components:
1. studio classroom format
2. model-centered curriculum
3. systematic use of representational tools
4. a unifying link between technology and pedagogy
5. techniques for managing student discourse
6. creation of a learning community
7. modeling approach to problem solving
8. integration of energy throughout the curriculum
We would appreciate it if you would forward this message to interested
faculty members in your department. PLEASE NOTE: WE RECOGNIZE HOW BUSY
FACULTY ARE AT THIS TIME; THUS TO EXPEDITE MATTERS, INTERESTED FACULTY NEED
NOT FILL OUT THE APPLICATION FORM TO BE CONSIDERED. They may simply send
me <michael.politano@asu.edu> an e-mail indicating
their desire to attend. The application form can be filled out later.
Thank you,
Michael Politano
Visiting Assistant Professor of Physics and
Co-leader of the RUP workshops
P.S. You may also be interested in the following information. The
physics education group at ASU has also been funded to scale-up Modeling
Instruction in introductory college physics courses from small class sizes
(~20 students) to larger class sizes (~120). This past semester, we taught
a university physics section of 64 students using Modeling Instruction (a
factor of 3 scale-up). The normalized (Hake) gain on the FCI for this
section was 0.63, comparable to gains in the smaller sections using
Modeling Instruction, and was a factor of two higher than gains achieved by
comparison university physics sections at ASU taught using traditional
instruction. The results from last semester will be available on our
website very soon (likely the first week in April).
------------------------------------
Jane Jackson, Co-Director, Modeling Instruction Program
Box 871504, Dept.of Physics & Astronomy,ASU,Tempe,AZ 85287
480-965-8438/fax:965-7331 <http://modeling.asu.edu>