Seattle, Washington
June 14, 2015
June 14, 2015
June 17, 2015
978-0-692-50180-1
2153-5965
Engineering Physics & Physics
22
26.150.1 - 26.150.22
10.18260/p.23489
https://peer.asee.org/23489
818
Timothy J. Garrison is the Coordinator of the Mechanical Engineering Program at York College of Pennsylvania
Active Learning Laboratories in a Restructured Engineering Physics-‐Mechanics At the 2014 Annual ASEE conference, the author presented a paper on a completely restructured engineering physics (mechanics) course. The traditional physics course structure, consisting of a separate lecture (3 hrs three times per week), laboratory (3 hrs once a week) and recitation (1.5 hours once a week), was discarded in favor of a single, blended class meeting 2.5 hours three times per week. Moreover, the new class was designed to operate as a fully active learning course (i.e. without any lecture) by making use of several active learning methods including peer instruction (aka think-‐pair-‐share) and interactive, peer laboratories. To support the restructured, active learning course, the author developed a 400 page active learning workbook that consists of nearly 1000 peer instruction questions and 31 interactive laboratories, many of which are multi-‐part. The 2014 ASEE paper describing the newly configured physics class was well received and numerous session attendees requested additional information on the active learning strategies, particularly the interactive peer laboratories. This paper will describe the interactive peer laboratories in detail. It will cover the educational benefits of the interactive laboratories as well as how they are implemented in the class. Performance data, obtained by administering the Physics Force Concept Inventory test on both the first and last day of class will be presented. The data clearly show significant gains in conceptual understanding when using the interactive peer laboratories as compared to similar data collected using a traditional laboratory structure. The paper will summarize all 31 of the interactive labs. Moreover, it will address how to implement the labs in an effective active learning environment.
Garrison, T. J. (2015, June), Active Learning Laboratories in a Restructured Engineering Physics–Mechanics Paper presented at 2015 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Seattle, Washington. 10.18260/p.23489
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