University Physics II

In 1995 the National Science Foundation funded a grant for the restructuring of the University of Arkansas' introductory electricity and magnetism course, University Physics II (UPII). The course was re-built using a mixture of traditional elements and the latest results of Physics Education Research(PER). Once the redesigned course was functioning and showed promise, methods to improve on the initial design were sought. What we found were a variety of completely new methods to try and a concept inventory. We wanted to make small changes to a course that was working well, not totally overhaul the course again with different methods. Out of this experience grew the expanding system of educational engineering presented at this site

Full Coverage

The Full Coverage implementation of class is in its second semester. The course includes most topics that are presented in a traditional introductory text, and all conceptual and graphical coverage of the Restricted Class. The additional coverage requires students to learn some material on their own through the course readings. The class generates a stellar normalized gain on the CSEM of 50%.

Class Resources

Course Design Guide The goals and design decisions that went into building University Physics II are presented in the design guide.

Activity Guide Lab manual for the course.

Course Notes Complete course readings which mix traditional quantitative instruction with explicit coverage of qualitative reasoning.

Teaching Assistant Guide Instructions to course teaching assistants for successfully presenting UPII.

Instructor Guide Instructions for the implementation and management of UPII for the lead instructor

Course Performance Complete set of averages for all assignments.

Course Correlations Correlations between student performance on assignments and performance on CSEM and tests.

Student Behavior Results of survey of student time use and how behavior correlates to CSEM and test performance.