PER-BASED INTRODUCTORY PHYSICS REFORM AT OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY AAPT, JULY 2010 Dedra Demaree, Sissi Li

Context  Large-scale course reform of calc-based intro physics  Huge affordances: departmental norms established through the “Paradigms” upper division course reform  (why I wanted to work at OSU – go check it out – session ED tomorrow)

Established reform “Community of Practice”  “Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.” (Wenger)  “Regular meetings allow for perspective transformation through discourse. “ (Kember and McKay)  Community validation NOT mandates  Reform strengthened by varied expertise

Valuing faculty input  Faculty know the students  Faculty research expertise  Faculty have ‘meta-goals’ in their teaching  Group discourse helps make these explicit  PER informs meta-goals (go to PERC!)

Committee tasks 3 curricular committees involving ALL faculty members for: lower division, upper division and graduate courses (yes, we have too many meetings…)  Set goals  Evaluate course content  Discuss student achievement and difficulties  Assessments and results  Suggest improvements

Conceptual Understanding Problem Solving Epistemologies/ Attitudes Scaffolding/ Math Appreciation/ Curiosity Faculty members ‘see’ different pieces based on orientation: simplified diagram of emergent reform model based on curriculum committee meetings Each drive the other, each suggests particular assessments

Reflective teaching  Faculty reflection:  Observer in classroom with post-class discussions with instructor  Modeled after Paradigms: videotaped, review and document reform  Journaling what went well, what needs improvement  Structured TA discussions improve implementation  And they place high value in reflecting on their teaching practice (more at George DeBeck’s PERC poster)

Where we are now  Peer Instruction (to some level) in all introductory classrooms  ISLE in my classroom, and I’m using the new SCALE- UP studio (introduced spring term 2010 – see poster Tues night!)  Faculty members have:  contributed to activities, observed my class, discussed how activities played-out and whether goals are being met  BUT: Most faculty members are not ready to teach this way!!

Feeling the need for change  “findings highlight the critical role of pedagogical and contextual dissatisfaction in creating a context for fundamental change.” (Gess-Newsome, Southerland, Johnston, Woodbury)  Varied (strong) ideas about how to achieve goals  Assessments show what methods are more effective (ouch!)  Faculty must be open to reflecting upon their own teaching (yep, there’s the rub…)

Change is not easy or fast…  Faculty member comfort level and buy-in  Community of Practice framework suggests how to achieve buy-in rather than insisting on adaption of specific methods  “teaching context, teacher characteristics, teacher thinking, and their interactions [are] influential factors in attempts to implement classroom reform.” (Gess-Newsome, Southerland, Johnston, Woodbury)  We don’t all think the same!!!  BUT… this can be a positive: Need to view reform as constantly evolving – faculty bring new ideas and different implementations  (Slow and steady wins the race!)

 “adapting faculty members should choose innovations that genuinely interest them and are aligned with their goals, should experiment with innovations in a gradual way, and should receive support throughout the process.” (Penberthy and Millar)  Community of Practice faculty goal setting, giving us a leg-up on this barrier  Will start to incorporate peer teaching to help faculty transition into leading reformed courses (recommended by the U of Colorado practice and research literature) Moving forward

Acknowledgements  OSUPER (Oregon State University Physics Education Research) Group: Corinne Manogue, Sissi Li, George DeBeck, Jennifer Roth and Sam Settlemeyer  Lower-Division Course Committee: Henri Jansen (department chair), Corinne Manogue, David Bannon, Chris Coffin and Jim Ketter, with Zlatko Dimcovic  Chandra Turpen, Steven Pollock and Stamatis Vokos for discussions during their visits

Conceptual Understanding Problem Solving Epistemologies/ Attitudes Scaffolding/ Math Appreciation/ Curiosity FCI, CSEM… Productive attitudes enable more participation and engagement in the community of practice Student feedback, engagement CLASS, qualitative studies Committees discuss assessment possibilities, promoting coordination and buy-in for collecting data: ISLE Rubrics Committee choices, teacher implementation, student engagement

Abstract  At Oregon State University, innovative curriculum and pedagogy choices have been in place for more than a decade with the Paradigms in Physics project. The past few years have focused on extending this reform to the lower-division large lecture courses. Our reform has been implemented in phases, starting with changes to the large lecture, then changes to the lab, and most recently, with the incorporation of a studio-based portion of the course in a SCALE-UP room. This talk will discuss our team-based reform model which involves graduate students, a large fraction of our faculty, and all of our full-time course instructors. We find holding regular reform group meetings and post-instructional team meetings to be a highly valuable reform tool for refining the curriculum and building/transferring pedagogical content knowledge. How we use these meeting times will also be discussed.