Clark University - Clarknews fall 2004
Understanding science by discovering physics (fall 2004)
Active learning in the classroom sheds light on scientific literacy
By Anne Gibson
As part of the University's Program of Liberal Studies, all Clarkies are required to complete a ³science perspective," described in the Academic Handbook as a course designed to teach ³the principal methods and results of the study of the natural world."
But this requirement can be very intimidating to students who aren't planning to major in science or math. Fortunately, Clark offers a science course that gets rave reviews from these students: Discovering Physics, a hands-on approach to learning about science designed especially for nonscience students.
Discovering Physics was developed by experimental nuclear physicist Les Blatt, a professor of both physics and education at Clark, in collaboration with other faculty in those departments. Early in his Clark career, Blatt was concerned that physics courses didn't serve the needs of nonscience majors.
"We weren't satisfied that we were offering the best course that we could for the nonscience majors," says Blatt, speaking for himself and Physics Department colleague Harvey Gould.
During the 1989-90 academic year, Blatt, along with Gould, Gould's father Mauri (a retired high-school science teacher), and then senior physics major Josh Gutwell '90, met regularly to discuss their concerns and design a better approach. They incorporated input from faculty and students at Clark's Hiatt Center for Urban Education, as well as education literature dealing with teaching science in a K-12 curriculum. At that time, little research had been done on teaching science at the college level.
Blatt's team realized that for many, if not most, nonscience majors, Discovering Physics would be the only science course of their college career. That assumption profoundly shaped the team's goals for the course, one of which was to produce students who were "scientifically literate."
"We wanted these nonscience majors to get some appreciation for the way physics works and the way science works in general, because science is so important in our society today," Blatt explains. "To be good citizens, you have to have some understanding of the way science works and not just a checklist of facts."
Turning on the light
Blatt and his colleagues decided that the course should focus on the nature of light, a phenomenon people encounter in their everyday lives that could be used to touch on many aspects of physics.
"We figured that in just one semester, students weren't going to learn a lot of physics. Right away we decided to limit the content so that what we did present could be learned well, and in some depth," he says.
Blatt and his colleagues discovered from their research that a totally hands-on approach was far more effective in teaching science than the traditional lecture and lab combination. They designed Discovering Physics to be centered on students conducting experiments in small groups, an approach that mirrors the way most professional scientists work today. The team also ensured that the students would have plenty of time to reflect on their experiments, both through intensive classroom discussion during which students had to articulate what they learned, and a final project requiring each group to teach a physics concept to other students, either at Clark or in the Worcester Public Schools.
A new experience
Blatt taught Discovering Physics until 2003. During his sabbatical that year, the course was team-taught by colleagues Chris Landee and Ranjan Mukhopadhyay, the latter a physics professor new to Clark. Mukhopadhyay, who is teaching the course this fall, was initially apprehensive about the course.
"Not only had I not been involved in teaching a course like this, but I had never even participated in a course like this as a student. It was a completely new experience," he explains.
Despite Mukhopadhyay's initial concern, the semester was a success. "This was a very exciting opportunity for me. I could really reach out to people who are in nonscience majors. I enjoyed teaching the course, and students got very involved in the course and the experiments. The student evaluations were also quite good."
For sociology major Elizabeth Henry '05, Discovering Physics was "the perfect class for the nonscience major." She "loved the hands-on approach" and appreciated the especially supportive learning environment.
"The two professors only encouraged and never discouraged us. I loved the atmosphere of the classroom‹it was a very relaxed environment and there was never the feeling that if you asked what you considered to be a dumb question, people would treat you differently," Henry says. "I never walked out of the class without having participated in some form."
Great professors, great physics
Like Henry, philosophy major Matthew Colpitts '06 chose Discovering Physics to fulfill his science perspective, having heard that it had "a good reputation" and was "humanities friendly." He was pleased with his choice.
"It was a great class," Colpitts says. "I've always been interested in the philosophy of science, so I thought this would be a good chance to look at some basic physics. Chris Landee and Ranjan Mukhopadhyay are both great professors. I often found myself asking them more about physics, and spent a lunch hour with Professor Landee talking about different stuff we were doing."
Colpitts usually prefers to work independently, but admits that, when it came to learning physics, working in a group made sense. "This was good to do in a group because we all had different backgrounds. My group had somebody studying gerontology, a philosophy/English major and an English major. We had three people who had no idea about physics coming together to try to figure it out. We had interesting conversations and often went to lunch together after class."
For Colpitts, the course met its two-part goal of teaching scientific literacy and a subfield of physics in depth. "The idea of scientific questions and scientific methods is really well addressed at the beginning of the course and is gone over in a very basic way so anyone can understand it," Colpitts says. "And anyone who goes to that class is going to come out with a good understanding of light."
For some students, the impact of the course continues years after graduation.
"It was a fantastic class," says Shawn LaCount '98, M.A.Ed. '99, who is the artistic director of Company One, a theater company in Boston. "Many students grasped difficult concepts in the course because we had such a hands-on understanding of them. It was fun, but more importantly, it was informative."
Read more about Discovering Physics, and hear interviews with students and faculty online at www.clarku.edu/discover, where you'll also find many more examples of active learning at Clark.
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