The University of Massachusetts Amherst

2. How is P131 Structured?

As a four-credit course, P131 meets three times a week for 75min each session. However, our P131 course follows a flipped classroom model wherein students are responsible for developing a basic understanding independently before the material is discussed in class. Class time is then spent deepening understanding through application in problem solving and fully integrated lab activities in teams of five. All labs are conducted during the TBL meeting sessions in the TBL classroom. There is no additional lab period.

Following the work in Michaelsen[1], we have divided our course into five units:

  1. Mathematical Tools and Foundational Concepts – including “Fermi-style” estimation problems, mean and standard deviation, understanding position/velocity/acceleration, as well as vector manipulations
  2. Forces – Includes Newton’s Three Laws of Motion as well a survey of different types of forces used in the course such as gravity, normal forces, tension, friction, drag, etc.
  3. Force and – Combines the idea of force with an additional quantity resulting in a survey of pressure, work, impulse, and torque
  4. Conservation Laws – Includes the ideas of conservation of energy and of momentum
  5. Thermodynamics and Statistical Physics – Focused on developing a conceptual understanding of entropy in terms of microstates and macrostates.

Each unit is one to three weeks long depending upon the difficulty and amount of material in each unit. For example, Unit 3 – Forces and is three weeks due to the fact that it covers a large amount of material while Unit 4 – Conservation Laws is only one week as students typically have little difficulty with this material. Each unit follows the same general structure outlined below. Specific details can be found in the course syllabus.

2.1 At the Beginning of the Semester – Team Construction

2.2 Before a Unit Begins

2.3 On the First Day of a Unit

On Subsequent Days of a Unit

 

References

[1] Larry K. Micaelsen, Arletta Bauman Knight, and L. Dee Fink, Eds., Team Based Learning: A Transformative Use of Small Groups in College Teaching. Sterling, VA: Stylus, 2004.