Teaching Practicum in Physics

McCarthy, Patrick E.

Student Work

Teaching Practicum in Physics

Public

This project intends to determine the efficacy of a simulation-based classroom structure in two ways. The first of which is to compare the new classroom structure to the existing structure, the new structure being the simulation-based classroom and the existing structure being the laboratory-based classroom. This will be done by comparing the student scores on the part of the class which will be the most changed, the Labs. This is where the comparison will be made because a majority of the two structures will be very similar except for these Labs. The second method of comparison will be a pretest and a corresponding posttest on content which has been taught to them using the simulations. This method was selected because it is a very standard way of measuring student learning in classrooms and achieving a high student learning is the goal of every classroom. The simulation-based classroom is important because it allows for a classroom in which a school may not be able to afford the expensive equipment required to do some of the experiments to be done not only by the students in the same way as in a laboratory-based classroom, but also in ways which would be very difficult even for well-funded schools.

This report represents the work of one or more WPI undergraduate students submitted to the faculty as evidence of completion of a degree requirement. WPI routinely publishes these reports on its website without editorial or peer review.

Creator