Our Clients Faculty, Students, College of Engineering, U of I Our approach Infrastructure

Cornell (Mar/10/03): Pg 1www.physics.uiuc.edu

Educating in Bulk:Educating in Bulk:The Introductory Physics Course The Introductory Physics Course

Revisions at IllinoisRevisions at Illinois Mats Selen, UIUC Department of Physics

Our Clients Faculty, Students, College of Engineering, U of I

Our approach Infrastructure Pedagogy Technology

Some Research Results The particle physics approach.

“Physics 100” Helping under-prepared students

Deep thoughts Just Do It


Our Clients:Our Clients:

Each week:

Lectures (2x75 min)

Discusison (2 hrs)

Lab (2 hrs)

Calculus Based: Total enrollment of about 3500/year Mostly Engineering (& Physics) students

Physics 111 (4 hrs, mechanics)Physics 112 (4 hrs, E&M) Physics 113 (2 hrs, thermo/stat-mech)Physics 114 (2 hrs, waves/quantum)

Each week:

Lectures (2x50 min)

Discusison (2 hrs)

Lab (3 hrs)

Algebra Based: Total enrollment of about 1100/year Mostly pre-med & biology students

Physics 101 (5 hrs, mechanics, heat, fluids, waves)Physics 102 (5 hrs, E&M, Light, Atoms, Relativity)


How it used to work:How it used to work: Tradition, Tradition, Tradition

Lecturer “owns” the course and is free to “reinvent the flat tire” every semester.

Discussion TAs pretty much on their own. Labs intellectually disconnected from rest of

course.Typically only quantitative problems on exams.

RESULTS: NOBODY IS HAPPY !!Lecturer dislikes it since it’s a monster

teaching assignment.Students dislike it because they see

the lecturer dislikes it and because the organization is often “uneven” at best.


How we do it now:How we do it now: Integrate Integrate all aspects of a course using active learningactive learning methods in a

team teachingteam teaching environment.

Typically 3 faculty share the load for a class:»Lecturer (lectures, ACTs, preflights, exams).»Discussion Director (TA training, quizzes, exams).»Lab Director (TA training, web homework, exams).

Course administration is shared responsibility:»Faculty meet at least once a week with each-other and with their

TA’s to plan the campaign.»Overall co-ordination is very tight (web helps this).»Everybody works on creating exams.

Course material changes adiabatically:»Recycled & tuned from semester to semester.»People don’t need to re-invent the whole stew,

but can focus on the spices!


Existing (evolving) infrastructure lowers the bar for participation.» This is now seen as a reasonable teaching load.» Most of our new junior faculty start teaching in

these courses (i.e. not a heavy assignment).

Pain & Gain are shared» No burnout & No heroes.» Makes it possible to keep quality high and

material consistent even though instructors are changing.

Advantages of this approach:Advantages of this approach:

42 of ~70 faculty have taught in these courses since 1995 !


Feedback Feedback (are things better now ?)

THE OLD Spring 95Total Physics TAs = 77# “Excellent” = 15 19 ± 5 %

THE NEW Spring 01Total Physics TAs = 75# “Excellent” = 58 77 ± 6 %

THE OLDStudent Attitudes Towards Physics 102 (fall99)

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good bad

Student Attitudes Towards Physics 101 (fall99)

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Standard stuff these days

Details of some key components:Details of some key components:

WEB-centric organization

Peer instruction in Discussion & Lab sections

ACTs & Preflights in Lecture

Homework & Interactive Examples

Exams


AllAll course materials available on-line. Lectures, discussion & lab materials, exams… Makes our job easier (copy spring01 fall01).

All students do several on-line assignments every week: Homework, Interactive Examples, Quizzes Preflights for lectures, labs & discussion Exam preparation & exam results All grades & progress throughout the

semester»Students know in advance what everything

is worth and the final thresholds for A,B,C,D,F etc



This is hard for TA’s to get used to: Training !






Exams


TA to the rescue !A Question

NO LECTURING HERE

Key Idea: Collaborative LearningStudents work in groups of 4 on problems prepared by the

senior staff. TAs act as facilitators, not lecturers.TA preparation very important (extensive training program).

» Orientation, Weekly Meetings, Mentor TAs, ObservationContent of prepared materials very important

Discussion SectionsDiscussion Sections


Lab SectionsLab Sections

• PREDICT• OBSERVE• EXPLAIN

Engage the students in the learning process and promote mastery of concepts by manipulation of experimental apparatus.

Web-based Prelabs; Lab reports finished within class period.


The most fun you’ll ever have teaching!






Exams


Pre-Flights !!Pre-Flights !! Students are asked to answer a set of conceptual questions

(on the Web) prior to every lecture (and discussion, and lab).

The main structure is:Students read about material in text.Students answer pre-flight questions on material prior to

lecture. » Physics 101 PF’s due at 6am, lecture starts at 1pm.» Graded on participation, not correctness.

Instructor uses pre-flight responses to guide lecture preparation.

Pre-flights are reviewed during lecture, often presented again as ACTs, and often capped off with a demo.» Use their own words, (both right & wrong)

With careful preparation, the pre-flights can form the “backbone” of the lecture.


What the students see on the web: What I typed in a simple text file:


The instructors interface to thestudent responses (also on web):

Statistics:

Free response:

“NTUPLE” inspired


Lecture 6, Lecture 6, Pre-Flight Questions 7&8Pre-Flight Questions 7&8 Two identical boxes, each having a weight W, are tied to the ends of a string hung over a pulley (see picture).

What is the tension T in the string?

1. T=0 2. T=W 3. T=2W

33%

23%

44%

0% 20% 40% 60%

correct

WW

T

This is exactly what Iprepare before and show during the lecture


Students see their own answersStudents see their own answers

Two identical boxes, each having a weight W, are tied to the ends of a string hung over a pulley (see picture).

What is the tension T in the string?

1. T=0

2. T=W

3. T=2W

Due to Newton's second and third laws, the rope itself is massless, so any force transmitted across it is done so without the diminishing of any magnitude. As each box has an equal weight, the tension T must be zero, as each box's force cancels the other's out.

The string has the tension of two weights.

The force applied to the rope is transmitted to the other side. This example would be just like a person hoisting up a box, pulling on the rope with a force of W. In this case, the tension would just be W.

WW

T


Students have fun with answers...Students have fun with answers...

Shown is a yummy doughnut. Where would you expect the center of mass of this breakfast of champions to be located? (Explain your reasoning Homer).

CORRECT

You're not getting my answer unless i get sprinkles.....suckers ! unfortunately, i think the center of mass of this perfectly symmetrical donut would be the center of the donut which does not seem to exist; so, i'll just say homer ate it.

I think it would be in a the middle of the dough in a circular pattern. Kind of like the onion in an onion ring. UMMMMM..... Onion rings!!!!

INCORRECT

Homer: "mmmm.....donut...(slobbering)...center of mass in tummy...." Flanders: "why no diddly-o there Homer. The center of mass would be in the center of the hole." Homer: "Doh!"







Exams


Interactive Examples (Socratic Interactive Examples (Socratic Dialogue)Dialogue)







Exams


Students are happier…Students are happier…but are they learning more ??but are they learning more ??

Physics Education Research


For Example:Do BEFORE vs AFTER study to see

if student learning was impacted by the introduction of Interactive Examples (IEs):

Choose Homework B “on-line quiz” performance as metric of learning


““Homework B”Homework B”ExampleExample

Given C1, C3, and C4

Three Qualitative

» Compare Q1 and Q4

» Compare Q1 and Q3

» How does energy change if dielectric added to C2?

Two Quantitative

» Given Q1 and E, what is C2?

» Given Q1 and E, what is V3?

64%

74%

68%

56%

54%

• Four different versions given each week

• Total of 269 different questions!!


Homework B AnalysisHomework B AnalysisThe Homework B questions have a wide variation in difficulty

Homework B Question Difficulty

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Score

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Computing the total Homework B average (pre-IE), we see: Fall Avg = 63.2 0.2 Spring Avg = 67.8 0.3

We take this difference as a measure of the difference in populations, on-sequence vs off-sequence.

Until we understand how to correct for this difference, we will compare only Spring to Spring and Fall to Fall.


Homework B: Pre IEsHomework B: Pre IEs

Compare performance on Homework B questions (269 total!) in Physics 112 between Spring99 and Spring00 (pre IEs)

Looks pretty similar.. We try to quantify..

Physics 112 Sp99, Sp00

-0.3

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Question

<Sp0

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Question #


Distribution of DifferencesDistribution of Differences

Create model from the following input: Question Difficulty Distribution Student Performance Distribution

Run “simulation” of two identical semesters and plot distribution:

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Model Works

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-6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5

# Q

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ions Sp99 – Sp00Histogram the points on the previous

plot to get a distribution of the normalized differences:

(<sp99>-<sp00>)/

Distribution centered at 0 (mean = 0.09), with width 1.17


Compare Performance Compare Performance Post IE – Pre IEPost IE – Pre IE

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112 Sp02 – Sp00

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112 Fa02 – Fa00

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111 Fa02 – Fa01

CONCLUSION: Systematic Improvement

in all semesters ofboth courses!


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-6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 ovf

Physics 112Sp02 + Fa02

More Observations:

On avg, HWB score has improved by 1.6

A total of 47 questions have improvements > 3 !Look in a little more detail at these 47 questions (18% of total) Were improvements made in qualitative or quantitative questions?

Qualitative/Conceptual: 35 questions Quantitative: 12 questions Improvement occurs uniformly in both areas

» fraction of all HWB questions that are quantitative = 25% Very encouraging, but much more work is needed to understand this.


Is Easy to Forget that Physics is HardIs Easy to Forget that Physics is Hard

Can we help under-prepared students to “get it” ?Can we help under-prepared students to “get it” ?And its even worse if you are not well

prepared !


Physics 100:Physics 100:”Thinking About Physics” ”Thinking About Physics” (1 credit

hour)

Despite the University of Illinois’ C of E very high admission standards, nearly 20% of accepted students are inadequately prepared to pass our introductory mechanics course Physics 111(i.e. they earn a D or F).

The failure rate is even higher for minority groups.» As high as 68% for African Americans !!

(About six times higher than the average)

Many students do not realize that they are poorly prepared.

We need to identify inadequately prepared students and help them gear up for Physics 111 and beyond.


Typical Physics 100 enrollment ~ 100Getting students is a challenge…next slide.

Course FormatOnline “Asynchronous Lectures” (interactive slides with sound)Online Homework (heavy use of Interactive Examples)Two hour discussion/tutorial once per week (expert instructors)Material covered is first 30% of Physics 111Follow-up prep classes in || with Physics 111 & 112

Fall(n) Spring(n+1) Fall(n+1)

Mainstream Physics 111 Physics 112

Under-prepared Physics 100 Physics 111 + 1hr prep Physics 112 + 1hr prep

Physics 100 does not start until ~ 3 weeks into the fall semester.Gives students time to evaluate their situationMany decide to take Physics 100 after doing poorly on the

first Physics 111 mid-term exam.


Identify students at the beginning of the semester using an online Self Evaluation quiz in “Engineering-100”.Students receiving a score below a certain cutoff are

“invited” to take Physics 100 (1 credit-hour).Fewer than half of identified students choose to

participate initially. (This should be a placement exam!)

Self Evaluation Score

Ph

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s 11

1 G

rad

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Is Physics 100 helping students ?Is Physics 100 helping students ?Q:Q: Can we reduce the failure rate of under-prepared students taking Physics 111/112/113/114 ?

A:A: Probably YES (research by Gladding & Shoaf)

All students

Average physics 100 students

Average physics 111 students

Self Evaluation Score

Ph

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1 G

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It seems like we might be helping, however there is a is a big caveat: Physics 100 students are self selected !

Are we getting only those students that were going to do well anyway ?

We need more data to study this.» A real placement test

would be very helpful !

Is Physics 100 helping students…Is Physics 100 helping students…


Summing UpSumming Up We have revised all of our “big” intro classes

(both calculus and algebra based).So far so good.Feedback very positive.

» Students like it, the faculty likes it, the University likes it.Maintaining momentum will be the challenge for the future

Our Physics Education Research Group is growingThis is becoming a real PhD research program

» Graduate students are very interestedWe have lots of data and many analysis ideas (like CLEO)!

Other projectsNew Inquiry based physics course for elementary-ed students

» K-5 teachers need more science.» I’m very excited about this…ask me later.


Strong departmental support is needed to pull this off:Vision, leadership, money (faculty release time).

Developing a sustainable infrastructure is the first part of the battle.We are eager to give away any/all of the materials & tools

we have developed, and (of course) hope to get new ideas back.

Getting faculty to “buy in” is the second necessary ingredient.Not everyone likes this approach.

Concluding ThoughtsConcluding Thoughts

At UIUC, most people have bought in to the “new” way.42 of ~70 faculty

have taught in these courses since 1995 !

“I can do it better all by myself”

Our Clients Faculty, Students, College of Engineering, U of I Our approach Infrastructure

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