written by Patrick B. Kohl , H. Vincent Kuo, and Todd G. Ruskell

The Colorado School of Mines (CSM) has taught its first-semester introductory physics course using a hybrid lecture/Studio Physics format for several years. Over the past year we have converted the second semester of our calculus- based introductory physics course (Physics II) to a Studio Physics format, starting from a traditional lecture-based format. In this paper, we document the early stages of this conversion in order to better understand which features succeed and which do not, and in order to develop a model for switching to Studio that keeps the time and resource investment manageable. We describe the recent history of the Physics II course and of Studio at Mines, discuss the PER-based improvements that we are implementing, and characterize our progress via several metrics, including pre/post Conceptual Survey of Electricity and Magnetism (CSEM) scores, Colorado Learning About Science Survey scores (CLASS), solicited student comments, failure rates, and exam scores.

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Published October 20, 2008
Last Modified May 22, 2009

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