Logistics of a secondary implementation of the Washington Tutorials

1. Introduction Traditional classroom arrangement (left) discourages group work. Tutorials space (right) requires appropriate furniture: small tables for groups of four. Movable partitions were built to separate Tutorial areas from surrounding lab areas. Desirable Teacher/Student Ratio: 2 undergraduate LA’s and 1 graduate TA in this class of 28 students. Rechargeable batteries – a must. RIGHT: Students engaged, interactive, working in groups. Staff keeps students on-task with gentle interventions. WRONG: Students working alone or off-task. More skillful staff presence needed. Conclusions • Tutorials work, if you take them seriously. For us, this meant: • Dedicated space / appropriate furniture • Purchase/construction of mini-labs • Increased staff to approach optimum teacher:student ratio of 1:10 • Weekly training sessions for staff • Ongoing enculturation of faculty/staff/students. References Acknowledgements To learn more… Logistics of a secondary implementation of the Washington Tutorials Michael Dubson, Steven Pollock, and Noah Finkelstein University of Colorado at Boulder per.colorado.edu Training of Staff and Students Increased Personnel In Tutorials, the TA/LAs do not lecture or simply "tell" answers; rather, their job is to guide students with the Socratic method, to probe student understanding with provocative questions, and to keep students on-task, allowing them to construct their own understanding. Often, both staff and students are uncomfortable with this format. A weekly 1-hour staff meeting is necessary to provide continuing pedagogical and content training. During the training session, TAs and LAs work through the upcoming Tutorial lesson and role-play teacher/student interactions. In Lecture, our instructors explicitly address student suspicions and communicate the philosophy of Tutorials. • For the last four semesters, we have been using the Washington Tutorials in our 1st or 2 nd-semester Calc-based introductory physics courses at the University of Colorado at Boulder. • The Tutorials replace traditional TA-lead recitation sections with group-work exercises that emphasize sense-making, model-building, and oral/written articulation of concepts. • At CU, successful implementation required: • Dedicated space with appropriate furniture • Moderate investment in equipment • Increased personnel • Proper training of staff Tutorials work best when the teacher:student ratio is 1:10. The Physics Department provides only 1 graduate TA per 30-student recitation section. To increase staff, we use undergraduate “Learning Assistants” (LAs) recruited from the students who have recently taken the course. Each LA teaches in 3 or 4 recitations, so that each Tutorial section has 1 TA and 1 or 2 LAs. Funds for LAs come from an NSF-funded STEM-TP grant. Due to limited funds and space, we can only run Tutorials for one course at a time. Plans are on-going to sustain the program once the STEM-TP grant expires. Battlefield Conditions Space and Equipment Some Tutorial experiments: RC circuits, currents and B-fields, galvanometer, electric motor. Note spring-switches in circuits to preserve battery life. Much equipment is purchased, but some is hand-made. In PhysicsII, about 80% of Tutorials involve mini-labs. All experiments are taken directly from the Tutorial Instructor's Manual, with some local adaptations. • Start-up Costs for a 500-student Physics II class: • Furniture (15 tables, cabinets, partitions): $10K • Mini-lab equipment: $8K • Faculty time to purchase/design/build: 60 hrs Outcomes Tutorials work… ...but are often viewed with suspicion We have seen significant learning gains, as measured by pre/post-tests and by standardized exam questions. • Some vocal student complaints initially, but these died away after 3rd semester of use. • Student “approval rating” consistently ~ 50%. • Some faculty refuse to use Tutorials because they don't perceive their value, yet freshmen using Tutorials haves post-test scores that are higher than post-test scores for our Junior-level E&M students. Poster DI10 Tues 2:15pm, "Assessing Multiple Transformations in 2nd Semester Physics", Steven Pollock Talk FF01 Weds 3:30pm, "Characterizing a Successful Secondary Implementation of Washington Tutorials", Steven Pollock and Noah Finklestein Special thanks to the MaryAnn Shea and the University of Colorado’s Faculty Teaching Excellence Program (FTEP), PhysTEC (APS/AIP/NSF), NSF STEM-TP, NSF CCLI (DUE #0410744), the CU Physics Dep't, the entire Physics Education Research at Colorado group, and the Physics Education Group at the University of Washington. Physics Education Technology Project, http://phet.colorado.edu. L.C. McDermott, P.S. Schaffer. “Tutorials in Introductory Physics.” Prentice Hall, New Jersey. 2002.