P.W. Young University of Wisconsin-Platteville Sponsored by NSF-DUE CCLI #

 Class designed to encourage interactive engagement between instructor and students and amongst students  Students sit and work in groups of 3 or 4  Laboratory activities are integrated into the instruction rather than separate  Studio Physics  Workshop (~25 students)  Studio (~50 students)  SCALE-UP (~100 students)

 Three identical studio classrooms (32’ x 60’)  14 stations, 4 students per station = 56 per class  Instructor station with computer & document camera in front corner  Demonstration table with video projection  Dual projection  Whiteboards around room (>80’)  2 sinks in back corners  Some storage in back of room  All 3 classrooms are connected to a storeroom

 Lab Table (3’ x 6’)  Oriented length-wise with respect to front  Two post mounts per table  Storage slot for low-friction tracks, posts, and meter sticks under table  Storage Cabinet (1½’ x 3’)  Data acquisition, carts, etc.  PC

 Lecture  Group Work  Concepts  Problems  Computer Simulations  Peer Instruction  Hands-on learning activities  Labs Note: Two instructors are present during major laboratory activities

 The studio classrooms are designed to support all the methods of instruction listed in the previous slide.  All introductory physics classes are taught in the studio classrooms, but instructors are not required to adopt any particular style of instruction

 Pre- and post- Force Concept Inventory (FCI) has been administered for 3 years  3 semesters in classes taught in traditional classroom with separate labs but with some interactive engagement  1 semester in studio classrooms with separate labs  2 semesters in studio classrooms with lab  FCI administered on-line via Desire to Learn course management platform  Voluntary participation but with some reward  Reward equivalent to 1 or 2 points on an exam or a homework assignment  Reward independent of performance  Participation levels vary with instructors, sometimes very poor, other times quite good

 In order to assess the effectiveness of studio instruction, I established a 10-point Studio Index to reflect the degree of studio instruction taking place in a particular class, as opposed to lecture.  0 – 5 based on % of class time spent in active learning  0 – 1 for group problem solving in class  0 – 1 for group discussions of concepts  0 – 1 for integration of lab into the class  0 – 1 for use of hands-on learning activities  0 – 1 for full class discussions/sharing

 I assigned a studio index to each class based on an interview with the instructor.  I then looked at how the normalized gains and the post-FCI scores compared to the studio indices.

FCI Post-Test Score versus Studio Index

FCI Normalized Gain versus Studio Index

 Interactive Engagement in a physics class is a lot of work  I’m not sure whether the Studio Index is a proper measure of the interactive engagement taking place in a class  Still too little data to draw any conclusions about the effectiveness of the studio classes  Large turnover in instructors  Not enough classes with Studio Index > 5