Group Learning in an Interdisciplinary Physical Science Course for Non-Science Majors

跨学科科学(99)这个项目致力于发展和整合渐进式教学法，让学生在非专业的跨学科物理课程中参与小组学习。研究人员计划通过使用协作学习和跨学科方法来学习基本科学概念，从而激发人们对科学的兴趣和兴奋。主要活动围绕着重组和使非专业学生在其教育中发挥积极作用，最大限度地减少向理科专业学生传授科学的传统方法，并在课堂和实验室纳入需要积极学习策略的成熟策略。主要研究人员的主要干预措施将是重新设计和开发一个新的课程和配套实验室。第二个目标是将重点放在科学是如何完成的上，因为大多数非科学专业的学生对科学家是谁以及他们做什么没有正确的认识。第三个目标是为学生提供一个机会，通过基于项目的学习方法，探索科学如何影响他们在家庭、学校和工作中的生活。目前，超过2000名学生在非专业课程学习，可能会受到这项工作的影响。由于田纳西中部州立大学培训了超过25%的州K-12教师，潜在的影响是巨大的。这项工作的制度化将通过大学讲习班和大学教师发展方案加以解决。

Interdisciplinary Sciences (99)This project addresses the development and integration of progressive pedagogies to engage students in Group Learning in an Interdisciplinary Physical Sciences Course for Non-Majors. The investigators plan to stimulate interest and excitement about science through the use of collaborative learning coupled with an interdisciplinary approach to learning basic science concepts. The primary activities centers around restructuring and enabling non-majors to take an active role in their education, minimizing the teaching science to science majors traditional approach and incorporating proven strategies in the classroom and in the laboratory which require active learning strategies. The principle investigators primary intervention will be that of a redesign and development of a new course and companion laboratory. A second objective will be the inclusion of a focus on how science is done since a majority of non-science majors do not have a correct picture of who a scientist is and what they do. A third objective will be to provide students with an opportunity to explore how science effects their lives at home, school and work through a project based learning approach..Currently over 2,000 students are in non-majors courses and can be impacted by this work. Since Middle Tennessee State trains over 25% of the states K-12 teachers the potential impact is great. Institutionalization of the work will be addresses through university workshops and to the university faculty development program.