One of my most memorable experiences this year was the session of the Collaborative Learning Conference when I got to take part in a Physics Inquiry lesson done by the Physics Education bunch from across campus (aka Lillian MacDermott's program). Although an excellent descriptive Brown Bag a couple of years ago had told me what they do, it wasn't until the workshop that I developed a real understanding of how they do it. Besides which, it was a lot of fun to do.
This Thursday, Peter Shaffer, Chris Kautz and Paula Heron have agreed to come and do the workshop with us right here in Padelford. I'll put the formal description below, and my personal plug right here: this is a great way to find out more about inquiry teaching, to find out more about this extremely well-known program and (I will bet) to find out what's behind some of the basic physics you have been taking for granted for a while.
We will meet at noon on Thursday, May 7 in the Math Lounge.
The workshop will incorporate an instructional approach that has been shown to be effective in promoting the intellectual involvement of students in large introductory physics courses. Although the context will be physics, the instructional strategies illustrated are appropriate to the teaching of other sciences and mathematics. Examples will be taken from Tutorials in Introductory Physics, a set of research-based instructional materials developed by the Physics Education Group at the University of Washington. Workshop participants will work though a tutorial in small groups. Discussion of practical issues and of the research basis for the specific tutorial will follow. The workshop will not require specialized knowledge of physics.