Enhanced Introductory College Physics
Project Premises
Many students graduate from high school with no experience in applying physics principles and processes, and find themselves unprepared for college physics. Because physics is such an important foundation course for virtually all STEM majors, it is imperative that our students succeed in college physics courses. To this avail, we have decided to restructure and improve our introductory face-to-face physics courses based on national models that are grounded in constructivist principles and other best practices in science education.
Implementation of National Models
We propose to address the problem by initially making changes in the way that the laboratory experience is integrated into the course. The laboratory experience should be an important tool in clarifying and supporting concepts introduced in the lecture part of the course. Several active projects around the country have been working on modifications to introductory physics courses, including:
Phases of the project