Section 5.13 Building a community of students.
¶One of the faculty members commented that the new approach encouraged students to talk with one another both inside and outside of class:
It seemed like we really built a community of students, because the students were together every day, seven hours a week; we gave them a separate room where they could be together even more hours...and they then developed a team work philosophy; we encouraged them to work together, they had to, the classes had these lab components, so they weren't just coming to the lab, listening to the professor, and walking away and not talking to each other; they had to talk to each other in the classroom.
He noted that this seemed especially to help the students who typically had encountered difficulties in the traditional format.
So that aspect, the whole active engagement makes them talk to each other so they'll build the connections in the classroom and then they work together; we fostered that and it worked well...and so that aspect definitely helps the students who need more help. The students who are going to do fine no matter what you say, they do fine no matter what...but I think there are a lot of the community aspects among the students which definitely help retain students and definitely help the students who normally might not do as well; they still don't maybe do quite as well as other students, obviously, they're still lower down the totem pole but they can survive the curriculum.
Manogue and Krane (2003) summarized the department's experience in increasing the number of physics majors at a time of national decline:
Top students reported feeling more excited and weak students reported feeling more supported. That satisfaction may account for an increase in the number of physics majors and graduates over the past few years; the increase is noteworthy because...it came at a time when the number of physics majors throughout the US was showing a prolonged decline...The buzz on campus and throughout the local physics community has prompted some students to transfer into physics from other majors and some physics majors at nearby colleges to matriculate into OSU's program. The paradigms are no less rigorous than the standard curriculum, but provide a gentler introduction to the topics. Moreover, the group activities provide faculty with more opportunity to offer students individual guidance and attention. Such a supportive classroom environment appears to retain the students who might otherwise transfer to less challenging majors if taught physics using the traditional approach. At the same time, the superior students find opportunities to explore the material at an even higher level. (p. 55).
An interviewee who had been an undergraduate at the time noted that he and four of his friends in engineering had shifted to physics because of their positive experiences in their physics courses.