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[Phys-l] SCALE-UP



Some links to get the ball rolling on the concept:

http://scaleup.ncsu.edu/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCALE-UP

(because I'm lazy, I'm going to refer to it as SU)

I can't actually provide much of a critique on the history or philosophy of the idea, although I'm no longer ignorant of it. I had never heard of it when I approached the University about teaching, but that's not surprising, except maybe for the fact that I also lurked here for many years. It's probably been mentioned or even discussed on phys-L but not very much in my (faulty?) memory. The idea, in a nutshell: replace the traditional lecture approach with an interactive approach that involves peers as well as instructors.

Rather than studying the concept, I spent virtually all my time smack in the middle of it. It sounds strange to use this word, but I want to say that my experience with SU is not "academic," if you know what I mean.

Our classroom is very similar to those described in the links above. 5 round tables, each seating 9 students in comfy chairs. Two projector screens. Each table has a central podium; the podium contains electrical outlets, network connections, and a video connection to the screens. There is also an overhead videocam at an auxiliary lab table. One chalkboard, legacy from the original classroom that was converted to SU. A lecture podium houses a computer and monitor, and controls for the screens.

The first couple of classes take up administrative duties. An entry survey asks students for their backgrounds and expectations, informal in the sense that we did it for our own purposes rather than the University's. I found these to be invaluable, not only at the beginning, but to refer back to throughout the semester. Also FCI, and some University-required surveys. Also a presentation of the syllabus, homework and grading policies, remaining registration issues, etc.

At this University, everyone taking physics at this level has to sign up for 3 separate sections: lecture, lab, recitation. Invariably, these are taught by a professor/lecturer, a graduate TA, and a different graduate TA, respectively. Long-time complaints about this system appear to include a) the students are exposed to significantly different teaching skills/styles and b) there is not always good synchronization between what is being covered in class/lab/recitation.

A supposed key point about the structure of the SU classroom is that it perfectly combines lecture/lab/recitation into one classroom with exactly the same teachers all the time, and perfectly synchronizes all lecture/lab/recitation topics. And then eliminates the lecture part.

I will return to this last paragraph, especially the last sentence, more than once.

After the first couple of classes, during which we do spend some easy time on random physics-like activities as well, each table of 9 is organized into groups of 3 students. The surveys are used primarily for this, since we otherwise know little about the students. The most important initial goal is to avoid extreme pairings, such as 3 students with really strong backgrounds, or 3 students with really poor backgrounds. Ideally, we would end up with 15 groups of 3, each with a strong, a weak, and an in-between student. Ideals are virtually impossible to achieve, but at least on paper there is enough of a distribution that the groupings are not to hard to come up with. Each student has his or her own name tag on the podium at the table, so not only do the students learn their peer's names quickly, but the teachers can too.

By design, the arrangement achieves one thing immediately: there is an instant social interaction between students. Some of the students know each other anyway, and after all they're kids... they make friends, if for no other reason than they have a camaraderie born of sharing a common enemy: physics. Regardless, the round-table setting encourages and achieves a high level of interactivity. Along with a couple other aspects along the way, all the students know one another well before the end of the semester, and I'm sure new friendships are born. I can't really say how this compares to a traditional lecture section, since I've not (yet) taught a traditional lecture section, but it would be easy to believe arguments that SU is "better" in this regard.

The most practical of these arguments would be that students learn "better" by interacting with their peers, whereas in a pure lecture setting the student is isolated, mano-a-mano with/against the lecturer, so to speak. But there is a flip side. What about the case in the heavily peer-oriented setting where a good student feels he or she is "stuck" with a less-than-ideal peer personality. Suddenly the tables are turned, and a pure lecture setting, where the good student can at least withdraw into his or her own little world and fend for themselves, becomes a preferred opportunity. I plan to come back to this discussion point, because in fact there are even more flip sides, and flip-flip sides, if you know what I mean.

Going forward, I'm inclined to talk about individual aspects of my experience, rather than try to go further explaining the concept or lofty principles in a connected, unified way. First of all, I have no PER background, can't speak to the research, and am basically thoroughly unqualified to talk about it, other than the fact that I did it, or a version of it. Besides, there are people on this list who *can* speak to this, and I hope they will respond - some of my observations may be better as responses than assertions. Second, I really want to focus on certain aspects that I feel are important, and that I could use some help trying to sort out. I would like to rely on other posters to help determine what else might be discussed.

My long weekend may start early so no prediction of the next post - no timeline on this anyway :-)


Stefan Jeglinski