| About the SCALE-UP Project | |
Educational research
indicates that students should collaborate on interesting tasks and be
deeply involved with the material they are studying. We promote active
learning in a redesigned classroom of 100 students or more. (Of course,
smaller classes can also benefit.) We believe the SCALE-UP Project has
the potential to radically change the way large classes are taught at colleges
and universities. The social interactions between students and with their
teachers appears to be the "active ingredient" that make the approach work.
As more and more instruction is handled virtually via technology, the relationship-building
capability of brick and mortar institutions becomes even more important.
The pedagogical methods and classroom management techniques we design and
disseminate are general enough to be used in a wide variety of classes
at many different types of colleges. Everything from differential equations
to comparative literature has been taught in SCALE-UP classrooms.
Classtime is spent primarily on "tangibles" and "ponderables". Essentially these are hands-on activities, simulations, or interesting questions and problems. There are also some hypothesis-driven labs where students have to write detailed reports. (This example is more sophisticated than most, but shows what the best students are capable of doing.) Students sit in three groups of three students at 6 or 7 foot diameter round tables. Instructors circulate and work with teams and individuals, engaging them in Socratic-like dialogues. Each table has at least three networked laptops. The setting is very much like a banquet hall, with lively interactions nearly all the time. Many other colleges and universities are adopting/adapting the SCALE-UP room design and pedagogy. Engineering schools are especially pleased with the course objectives, which fit in well with the requirements for ABET accreditation.
Materials developed for the course have been incorporated into the leading introductory physics textbook, used by more than 1/3 of all science, math, and engineering students in the country.
Rigorous
evaluations of learning have been conducted in parallel with the
curriculum development effort. Besides hundreds of hours of classroom
video and audio recordings, we also have conducted numerous interviews
and focus groups, conducted many conceptual learning assessments
(using nationally-recognized instruments in a pretest/posttest
protocol), and collected portfolios of student work. We have data
comparing nearly 16,000 traditional and SCALE-UP students taking
physics. Our findings can be summarized as the following:
- Ability to solve problems is improved
- Conceptual understanding is increased
- Attitudes are improved
- Failure
rates are drastically reduced,
especially for women and minorities
- "At
risk" students do better in later engineering statics classes
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The
Raleigh News & Observer newspaper has a description of the project.Other articles have additional information.
If you register for access, you will be able to see some sample room layouts
for 72 and 99 students, details about making whiteboards, and
information on how we set up our student groups. |
You are welcome
to visit. Teacher guides are being developed and will be made available
on the site as they are completed. A report on the project that was
made to one of our funding agencies is available.
A paper describing
the findings of the very successful pilot project was published in
the first issue of the Physics Education Research supplement to Am.
J. of Physics. An article describing
the project is available in the proceedings of the Sigma Xi Forum
on Reforming Undergraduate Education. A book chapter with many
details is also available.
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This research was supported, in part, by the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE), the National Science Foundation, Hewlett-Packard, Apple Computer, and Pasco Scientific. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of our sponsors.
