Models-based curriculum organization: introductory physics structured around a set of 27 models rather than a serial sequence of topics¶

Theory · All theories
Evidence · 6 claims (5 for, 1 mixed) · 1 study (1 design), q2 · 1 of 1 report an effect size · 6 claims rest on one study

Description¶

CLASP organizes its one-year curriculum around a set of 27 models — collections of ideas and relationships among them that prove useful for making sense of, explaining, and predicting phenomena — rather than the traditional serial topic-by-topic sequence. About a half dozen models are described as the most important overarching ones, beginning with conservation of energy and thermodynamics, then momentum and angular momentum, waves and optics, and finally fields and quantum mechanics. Concepts such as velocity are introduced only at the complexity each model requires, deferring the vector nature of velocity until conservation of momentum models. The article states the course keeps "the students' main focus on concepts rather than calculations, on genuine understanding and sense-making rather than rote memorization."

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Diagrammatic or graphical representations associated with each model, which let students begin working with a model before writing equations and doing complicated algebra.

Constraints¶

• The term model as used in CLASP frequently does not refer to historically defined sets of ideas, but to collections of ideas useful to these students for their needs.

Target Learners¶

• Undergraduate bioscience majors taking a one-year introductory physics requirement

Target Learning Objectives¶

• Building a lasting conceptual structure of physics organized around a few big ideas
• Applying models to new phenomena

Claims¶

• CLASP students achieved an average normalized FCI gain of 0.39, above the traditional-course range and in the middle of the interactive-engagement range, despite only about a third of one quarter on mechanics [+M]
• Students who took the first quarter of CLASP before general chemistry earned significantly higher chemistry grades in all three quarters of the chemistry sequence [+M]
• Bioscience students who took the CLASP series had statistically significantly higher upper-division GPAs than students who took the traditional Physics 5 series [+W]
• CLASP students' MCAT Physical Science scores were slightly higher than Physics 5 students', but the difference was not statistically significant; Biological Science scores were identical on average [~W]
• CLASP students' expert-like epistemologies (MPEX-II) were statistically unchanged over the quarter, unlike the declines reported for most standard and many reformed physics classes [+W]
• Only bioscience graduates who took CLASP (2000-2001) had significantly higher UDGPA than transfer students in their majors, unlike 1993-1994 graduates and non-bioscience majors [+W]

Related Theories¶

Examples¶

• CLASP course series (Physics 7A/7B/7C): a large-enrollment reformed introductory physics course for bioscience majors

Key Sources¶

• Potter, W., Webb, D., West, E., Paul, C., Bowen, M., Weiss, B., Coleman, L., & De Leone, C. (2012). Sixteen years of Collaborative Learning through Active Sense-making in Physics (CLASP) at UC Davis. https://arxiv.org/abs/1205.6970. doi:10.48550/arxiv.1205.6970