Sustaining educational reforms in introductory physics

Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research

Volumn 4, Issue 1, 2008, Pages

  Pollock, Steven J ^a   Finkelstein, Noah D ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 46149118947     PISSN: 15549178     EISSN: 15549178     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.4.010110     Document Type: Article

References (40)

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24. All faculty implemented peer instruction and an online homework system and had similar weightings of course components with respect to time spent and fraction of grade assigned. However, the manners in which these practices were implemented may, in fact, have varied considerably. An ongoing study examines the question of how faculty implement practices, but such an examination occurs at a finer-grain size than the present study, which focuses on curricular choices, and faculty background at a broader scale.
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26. Fall 2004 is not included in Fig. 3 as is a hybrid environment in our opinion (discussed in the text). CU data in Fig. 3 (shown as arrows) report learning gains on the FMCE, not the FCI. However, scores on these two instruments have been shown (Ref. 27) to closely correlate (correlation coefficient is r=0.8 in a study by the FMCE author), and we confirm this by comparing our CU gains for F03 and Sp04, otherwise nearly identical courses in all respects.
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30. This financial support is part of a broader effort. The CU Learning Assistant Program receives roughly $150,000 per year from the university to support six departments' use of learning assistants
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33. It is worth noting that the prescores and standard deviation suggest both that the instrument is reliable and the student body is consistent.
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37. It may also be argued that I2 learns in the process. In fact, we suspect so and become yet more informed (and support the claim that faculty can learn). However, this is a seasoned faculty member who appears to be engaging in similar approaches to framing and enacting the class practices.
38. We take this as a sign that once faculty members teach with tutorials, they are convinced of the effectiveness of this approach or at least of the inertia of the system working to sustain these innovations.
39. While it is possible to run tutorial-style activities with a single instructor, it is not recommended. See, R. E. Scherr, An Implementation of Physics by Inquiry in a Large-Enrollment Class, Phys. Teach. 41, 113 (2003).
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