Title
Sixteen years of Collaborative Learning through Active Sense-making in Physics (CLASP) at UC Davis
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-2-2014
Publication Title
American Journal of Physics
Volume
82
Issue Number
2
First Page
153
Last Page
163
DOI
10.1119/1.4857435
Disciplines
Applied Mathematics | Engineering Physics | Physics
Abstract
This paper describes our large reformed introductory physics course at UC Davis, which bioscience students have been taking since 1996. The central feature of this course is a focus on sense-making by the students during the five hours per week discussion/labs in which the students take part in activities emphasizing peer-peer discussions, argumentation, and presentations of ideas. The course differs in many fundamental ways from traditionally taught introductory physics courses. After discussing the unique features of CLASP and its implementation at UC Davis, various student outcome measures are presented showing increased performance by students who took the CLASP course compared to students who took a traditionally taught introductory physics course. Measures we use include upper-division GPAs, MCAT scores, FCI gains, and MPEX-II scores.
Recommended Citation
Wendell Potter, David Webb, Cassandra Paul, Emily West, Mark Bowen, Brenda Weiss, Lawrence Coleman, and Charles De Leone. "Sixteen years of Collaborative Learning through Active Sense-making in Physics (CLASP) at UC Davis" American Journal of Physics (2014): 153-163. https://doi.org/10.1119/1.4857435
Comments
This is a preprint that was uploaded to arxiv.org The Version of Record was published in the American Journal of Physics and can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1119/1.4857435