This project funds the purchase of computer and laboratory equipment to allow a transformation of the structure and purpose of the calculus-based three-semester engineering physics course at the university. This course serves approximately 700 students per year, most of them majoring in some form of engineering. Students in this course often find the course confusing and fail to build either strong physical concepts or a good understanding of the relation of physical models to real-world experiments. The new course focuses on concept building and the development of experimental and modeling skills. The new equipment is being used to create three new microcomputer laboratories with computer-assisted data acquisition. One lab will be a qualitative group-learning (tutorial) environment similar to those developed at the U. of Washington but with computer tools similar to Workshop Physics (Dickinson) or the CUPLE Physics Studio (RPI). These sessions last 1 hour a week and are given in each of the three semesters. Students work in groups of four using guided-discovery worksheets. The other two labs are quantitative and are taken in the second and third semesters. They last for 3 hours per week. Students take data both by hand and using the computer and use spreadsheets to model their observations. The emphasis is on developing understanding. The same computer tools are used in both the qualitative and quantitative labs. Both labs use facilitated learning with Socratic dialog methods.
