Calculus-enhanced energy-first curriculum for introductory physics improves student performance locally and in downstream courses
Calculus-enhanced energy-first curriculum for introductory physics improves student performance locally and in downstream courses
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物理导论的微积分增强能量优先课程提高了学生本地和下游课程的表现
DOI：
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发表时间：
2019
影响因子：
3.1
通讯作者：
C. J. Fischer
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Sarah E. LeGresley;J. A. Delgado;C. Bruner;M. Murray;C. J. Fischer
在这里，我们展示了一个新的课程的好处，介绍基于微积分的物理学，激励经典力学使用修改后的版本的哈密顿力学。该课程将教学的最初重点从力和相关的向量数学转移到标量能量，这与学生先前建立的直觉以及相关的微分和积分更加紧密地联系在一起。我们发现，实施这种演算增强的“能量第一”课程导致所有学生的力量概念清单考试的正常化收益更高，并提高了ACT数学成绩较低的学生在下游工程课程中的表现。换句话说，下游收益最大的是数学能力较低的学生，他们也有更大的保留风险。因此，这一新课程有可能通过专门帮助最需要帮助的学生，包括传统上得不到充分服务的人口，提高学生的保留率。我们建议未来的工作，调查是否这个新的课程已经降低了数学迁移的障碍，在入门物理学学习，同时导致在学生学习经典力学和应用数学的学生的流畅性的改善。
Here we demonstrate the benefits of a new curriculum for introductory calculus-based physics that motivates classical mechanics using a modified version of Hamiltonian mechanics. This curriculum shifts the initial focus of instruction away from forces and the associated vector mathematics, which are known to be problematic for students, to the scalar quantity energy, which is more closely aligned with their previously established intuition, and associated differential and integral calculus. We show that implementation of this calculus-enhanced “energy-first” curriculum resulted in higher normalized gains on the Force Concept Inventory exam for all students and improved performance in downstream engineering courses for students with lower ACT math scores. In other words, the downstream benefits were largest for students with lower math abilities who also pose a larger retention risk. This new curriculum thus has the potential to improve student retention by specifically helping the students who need help the most, including traditionally underserved populations who often have weaker mathematics preparation. We propose future work to investigate whether this new curriculum has lowered the math transference barrier to learning in introductory physics, resulting concomitantly in improvements in student learning of classical mechanics and in student fluency with applied mathematics.