Under David Hestenes' guidance, an excellent FREE 3-week Modeling Workshop
for post-secondary physics faculty will be held at Arizona State University
in July!
Please consider participating in this workshop and/or forwarding this note
to a colleague. If you go to the AAPT meeting, you might like to speak with
David Hestenes and/or workshop co-leaders Michael Politano and Eric Brewe.
Cheers,
Jane Jackson, Co-Director
Modeling Instruction Program, Arizona State University
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WORKSHOP ON "REMODELING UNIVERSITY PHYSICS" (RUP), JULY 8 - 26, 2002
Modeling Instruction, which has been so successful at the high school
level, has been adapted to the COLLEGE level. Normalized (Hake) gains on
the Force Concept Inventory (FCI) for remodeled university physics courses
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 its final NSF-funded 3-week summer workshop from July 8 - 26,
2002. The workshop will be led by Dwain Desbien, Michael Politano, and Eric
Brewe.
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 and structure of matter throughout the curriculum
We would appreciate it if you would forward this message to interested
faculty members in your department. They may simply send me
an e-mail at <rup_workshop@asu.edu> indicating their desire to attend.
The application form can be filled out and sent in later. Space is
limited to 24 participants. Therefore, we suggest interested faculty
apply as soon as possible.
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 (~100). For the past two years,
we've taught university physics sections of ~45-65 students using Modeling
Instruction (a factor of 3 scale-up). Normalized (Hake) gains on the FCI
for these sections were comparable to gains in the smaller sections using
Modeling Instruction, and were a factor of two higher than gains achieved
by comparison university physics sections at ASU taught using traditional
instruction. Assessment results from the first year of scale-up (AY 2000)
are available on our website.
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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>
Genius must transform the world, that the world may produce more genius.