The Physics by Inquiry curriculum (PbI), developed at the University of Washington with support from the National Science Foundation, has been shown to be very effective in helping students learn scientific concepts. However, the low student to instructor ratio normally required to implement PbI is one barrier to a widespread adoption.
Intellectual merit: The primary objective of the project is to adapt and investigate how the PbI curriculum can be implemented without the need for physics graduate student teaching assistants as it is currently being implemented by its developers. Instead, formal cooperative group learning techniques and undergraduate teaching assistants are being used. The investigators all have extensive experience with recent innovations in the teaching and learning of physics.
Broader impacts: The project allows PbI to be more easily adopted by institutions that serve populations targeted by the PbI curriculum (e.g., underprepared students and K-12 teachers). These institutions, including community colleges and teaching colleges, often do not have graduate students or any history of using undergraduate teaching assistants. The institutions collaborating on this effort are Baltimore City Community College (BCCC), Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU), and the General College at the University of Minnesota (GC-Minn). At SCSU, the target audience for PbI is pre-service K-12 teachers. At BCCC and GC-Minn, the majority of students are underprepared for university course work. Many students at BCCC and GC - Minn are under-represented minorities.
