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A flipped classroom approach was implemented in an undergraduate fluid mechanics course. Students watched short, online video lectures before class, participated in active in-class problem solving sessions (in pairs), and completed individualized online quizzes weekly. In-class activities were designed to develop problem-solving skills and teach subject content. The instructor and assistants provided critical "just-in-time tutoring" during the in-class problem solving sessions. Comparisons were made with a simultaneous section offered in a traditional mode by a different instructor. Students in the flipped-classroom section demonstrated greater gains on the Fluid Mechanics Concept Inventory (pre-test versus post-test). Multivariate regression analysis revealed that students in the flipped-classroom section had a significant relative gain on the Fluid Mechanics Achievement Score, which was an aggregative measure of problem solving ability and conceptual understanding. Student feedback on the flipped-classroom section was very positive both in terms of the course format and their perceptions of the amount learned in the course.

This paper examines the effects of hands-on learning in an undergraduate circuits class that is taught to non-majors; i.e., students outside of electrical and computing engineering. The course, ECE3710, is taught in a blended format facilitated by the video lectures prepared for two Massive Open Online Courses developed for the Coursera Platform. Because of the video content covered outside of class, the face-to-face portion of the class is enhanced with a number of active and collaborative learning techniques, including the inclusion of small-scale, mobile, hands-on labs. The assessment results show that the laboratory experiences play a significant role in the enhancement of student performance. The labs also have the benefit of improving students' confidence in course topics that are related to lab exercises.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of a model-based introductory physics curriculum on conceptual learning in a Physics First (PF) Initiative. This is the first comparative study in physics education that applies the Rasch modeling approach to examine the effects of a model-based curriculum program combined with PF in the United States. Five teachers and 301 students (in grades 9 through 12) in two mid-Atlantic high schools participated in the study. The students' conceptual learning was measured by the Force Concept Inventory (FCI). It was found that the ninth-graders enrolled in the model-based program in a PF initiative achieved substantially greater conceptual understanding of the physics content than those 11th-/12th-graders enrolled in the conventional non-modeling, non-PF program (Honors strand). For the 11th-/12th-graders enrolled in the non-PF, non-honors strands, the modeling classes also outperformed the conventional non-modeling classes. The instructional activity reports by students indicated that the model-based approach was generally implemented in modeling classrooms. A closer examination of the field notes and the classroom observation profiles revealed that the greatest inconsistencies in model-based teaching practices observed were related to classroom interactions or discourse. Implications and recommendations for future studies are also discussed.

This study's goal was to quantify the effects pre-lecture online quizzes and student-initiated inquiries to the instructor, either virtually or in person, had on students' achievement. Pre- and post-course tests were also implemented to an experimental and a comparison section of the same course. The number of electronic administrative contacts was positively related to achievement, and the number of in-person contacts was negatively related. The number of quizzes taken in the first section of the course was positively related, while the number of quizzes taken in subsequent sections of the course was not related, nor was quiz performance. Perhaps providing the opportunity to take the quizzes prompted the students to become involved in the course earlier on, thus establishing a sound basis for the following material. Complementing traditional teaching methods was not intrusive to highly structured course content already in place. (Contains 3 tables.)

A large enrollment, instructor-centered chemistry course taught with science demonstrations was transformed into one that was more student-centered. Course survey and examination results revealed more positive perceptions of the benefits of demonstrations and greater content mastery for students in the modified course than for those in the traditional course. (Contains 2 figures and 3 tables.)

This study provides an empirical analysis of the integration of clickers, used to facilitate formative assessments, in a university physics course. The sample consisted of students from two consecutive semesters of the same physics course, where one group used clickers and the other did not. Data included pre- and post-attitudinal and behavioral surveys, physics and mathematics pre-tests, two course examinations, and one cumulative final examination. The clicker group completed seven clicker episodes (weekly multiple choice questions and in-class discussion of results). On average, students who participated in clicker episodes achieved significantly higher scores on the cumulative final examination compared to the other group. Regression analysis was used to control for differences among the students and to quantify the effect of clicker use. The regression results indicate that controlling for all of the entered variables, for every one more clicker episode the student responded to, the final grade was raised by 1.756 points. Thus, if a student took all seven of the "clicker quizzes," the final grade would have been 12.3 points higher, a difference of a grade. Interestingly, how well the student did on these "clicker quizzes" never proved significant in the regres-sion analyses. In an analysis of the re-siduals, grades were more important to those who performed better than ex-pected as compared to those who per-formed less well than predicted. In sum, using clicker episodes appeared to result in improved achievement but more re-search is needed to support these findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an editorial on coordination in the U.S. National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) mission statement for kindergarten through sixteenth grade (K-16). The author looks at the coordination and collaboration among science education faculty in two-and four-year educational communities in the U.S., the U.S. National Science Foundation, and the periodical "Journal of College Science Teaching" (JCST).