A few of the highlights from PER...

Assessment tools

• Are mainly in the form of multiple-choice surveys, have been created for nearly all parts of introductory physics.

• Go beyond typical word problems found at the end of chapters, and probe students' understanding and misconceptions, rather than their ability to follow examples.

• Are typically given pre & post instruction to give a better sense of what changed during the semester.

Normalized Gain (G)
One way to gauge students' improvement over the course of a semester. Examples: A student with a prescore of 20%, and a postscore of 60% would have a G of 0.50. A student with a prescore of 50% and a postscore of 75% would also have a G of 0.50.

Dick Hake published one of the first analysis of FCI results from colleges & high schools. One of his findings was that "interactive" courses, no matter what techniques were used, yielded higher gains than "traditional" courses.¹

Classroom Materials

Many hands-on, and heads-on, research-based materials have been developed and tested.

• Workshop Physics- traditional lecture/ lab structure is replaced with a curriculum that places the students at the center of knowledge creation as there is minimal lecture

• Tutorials in Introductory Physics- worksheets that are conceptual in nature and use significant cognitive conflict to help students reconcile new information with existing knowledge

• Peer Instruction- students discuss their responses to short, conceptual questions with their peers, before the instructor discusses the question

• Interactive Lecture Demonstrations- traditional, passive demonstrations are replaced with ones where students make predictions before the demonstration. Predictions are compared to quantitative data that is collected with computer interfaced probes

• Modeling- Students are guided through the development of models via a learning cycle

• Context-rich problem solving- students are asked to work through problems that are more akin to "real life" than textbook problems. Significant scaffolding and support is offered by the instructors

• and many more!

Even the physical environment has been questioned, and redesigned. Workshop physics is a prime example of this as students work in small clusters, and the room often has no "front."

We have even reconfigured our primary physics classroom to accommodate a variety of instruction methods. If you're interested, you should stop by Seaver 101 some time to see a different way of configuring a classroom.

1. R. Hake, "Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods: A six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses" American Journal of Physics 66, 64-74 (1998)