Improving Introductory Physics for Life-Science Students through a Biomedically Relevant Multimedia Curriculum

本项目由美国国家科学基金会“改善本科STEM教育计划：教育与人力资源”（IUSE: EHR）资助，旨在通过改善生命科学和学前健康学生的物理教学，为国家利益服务。这些物理课程一般由物理系教授。因此，除非教师和课程材料明确地与学生所选专业的主题联系起来，否则这些课程往往看起来与这些学生不太相关。该项目是波特兰州立大学和罗克赫斯特大学的合作项目，旨在开发一整年用于物理课程的模块化、多媒体、生物医学相关的教育材料。它解决了改善学前健康和生命科学物理课程的重要需要，目的是帮助学前健康学生认识到物理学的研究既是必要的，也是与未来的生物医学职业相关的。多媒体课程的设计将通过与生物医学专业人员的合作来完成。视频和补充材料采用了基于现实世界应用的主动学习模式，以加强跨学科的努力，并为增加本科物理学的学习提供了巨大的潜力。该项目的意义在于解决未来生物医学专业人员精通基本物理原理的需求。这些原理涉及到分析人体功能的各个方面，以及疾病的检测、诊断和治疗。如果成功，该项目将有助于培养更有准备的一代医疗保健专业人员。该项目旨在通过满足两个主要需求来改变生命科学教育的入门物理。首先，它将为学生提供一门课程，强调物理学作为医学不可或缺的基础科学的重要性。其次，它将为教师提供一个连贯的物理课程，可以在多种教育环境中实施。这些材料对不熟悉生物医学相关跨学科内容的教员尤其有价值。本项目开发的课程材料将包括与生物医学专家访谈的视频，这些视频与《生命科学物理学导论》课程中涉及的关键思想有关。它还将包括一份书面手稿，明确地将视频与物理原理结合起来，并提供概念性和定量的课前/课后问题，以及形成性和总结性评估。为了提高课程材料的使用，该项目将研究它们在多种教育环境中的可转移性。它还将在一所大型公立大学（波特兰州立大学）和一所小型文理大学（罗克赫斯特大学）的物理导论课堂上研究主动学习教学法课程的实施情况。该项目旨在评估学生的内容学习和对学习物理的态度。形成性和总结性评估将通过记录点击流数据、发布前内容评估、态度评估和焦点小组退出访谈来进行。这些材料将免费提供给本科物理教学和教育研究团体，用于不同的数字学习平台，使学生能够在线完成作业，或以打印形式供课堂或实验室使用。NSF IUSE: EHR计划支持研究和开发项目，以提高所有学生STEM教育的有效性。通过参与学生学习轨道，该计划支持有前途的实践和工具的创建，探索和实施。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

With support from the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources (IUSE: EHR), this project aims to serve the national interest by improving physics instruction for life science and pre-health students. These physics courses are generally taught by physics departments. As a result, the courses often seem less relevant to these students unless the instructor and curricular materials explicitly connect to themes in the students' chosen majors. This project is a collaborative effort by Portland State University and Rockhurst University to develop a full year of modular, multimedia, biomedically-relevant educational material for use in physics courses. It addresses the important need to improve pre-health and life science physics curricula, with the aim of helping pre-health students appreciate the study of physics as both necessary and relevant to future biomedical careers. Design of the multimedia curricula will be accomplished through collaboration with biomedical professionals. The videos and supplementary materials adopt an active learning model based on real world applications to enhance interdisciplinary efforts and provide significant potential for increasing the learning that occurs in undergraduate physics. The significance of this project lies in addressing the need for future biomedical professionals to be well-versed in fundamental physics principles. These principles are involved in every aspect of analyzing functions of the human body, as well as the detection, diagnosis, and treatment of illnesses. If successful, the project will contribute to a better prepared generation of healthcare professionals.This project aims to transform Introductory Physics for Life Sciences education by filling two main needs. First, it will provide students with a curriculum that stresses the importance of physics as a basic science that is integral to medicine. Second, it will provide faculty with a coherent physics curriculum that can be implemented in multiple educational environments. These materials will be especially valuable to faculty members unfamiliar with biomedically-related interdisciplinary content. Curriculum materials developed in this project will include videos of interviews with biomedical experts, as related to the key ideas covered in an Introductory Physics for Life Sciences course. It will also include a written manuscript that will explicitly integrate videos with physics principles, and provide conceptual and quantitative pre/post class problems as well as formative and summative assessments. To enhance use of the curriculum materials, the project will study their transferability to multiple educational environments. It will also examine the implementation of the curriculum with active learning pedagogies in introductory physics classrooms at both a large public university (Portland State University) and a small, liberal arts university (Rockhurst University). The project is designed to assess student content learning and attitudes toward learning physics. Formative and summative assessment will be conducted through logging clickstream data, pre-post content assessment, attitudinal assessment, and focus group exit interviews. The materials will be available to undergraduate physics teaching and education research communities without cost, for use on different digital learning platforms that enable students to complete assignments online, or in printed form for classroom or lab use. The NSF IUSE: EHR Program supports research and development projects to improve the effectiveness of STEM education for all students. Through the Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.