Rationale
Knowledge and understanding. The idea was to try to reinforce a student’s understanding of the material with out the student just blindly learning how to apply the physics of the problem.
Successes
In both classes there was an improved pass rate at the 1st attempt examination. An interesting side effect of the approach used for PH 352 was the fact that the quantum physics marks improved which was attributed to the fact that the students felt more comfortable with the electromagnetism material so that they could concentrate on the quantum physics element at exam time. Can supply relevant data if needs be. Also saw difference in group performance for PH 352 approach depending in how active the tutors were. Again we can supply the appropriate data if needs be.
Lessons Learnt
Need to ensure that tutors are willing to drive the tutorial in the way that encourages students to and as such the Department needs to better train the tutors at the start of the class.
Challenges
Student buy-in as the approach was slightly different from their previous experience. For PH 358 the approach used there caused an almost 50/50 split in the class over whether the students agreed with the approach or not. The lecturer had to deal with a significant amount of “noise” too.
Scalability
This was offered to classes of about 100 students. The only scalability issue relates to the number of students and the student / tutor ratio.
Suggestions for Transferability
This could be applied to any problem solving initiative be it mathematics type problems through to design problems.
Attachments