Saturday Invited Speaker Abstracts

Schools are trying to outfit their classrooms with the latest and greatest of technologies in an effort to make them fit the ideas of what a digitally-enhanced learning environment should be in the 21st century.  This talk will look at some of that technology currently being incorporated into education, as well as some developing trends and new ideas coming down the pike, while considering the purpose, impact, and benefit inherent within.

Learning in a Studio Mode: The Studio Physics program at Boston University

This past year, Boston University has inaugurated its first studio classroom, as

part of a larger series of efforts across campus to transform undergraduate STEM

education. We describe the design and implementation of the new flat classroom, in

which students work in teams of three at nine round tables of nine students each. In

shifting the focus from a traditional instructor-centered mode of content delivery to

a student-centered mode of active engagement, studio learning encourages students

to work together in class on minds-on and hands-on activities, supported by a

cohesive team of faculty, graduate student Teaching Fellows, and undergraduate

Learning Assistants. We discuss specifically the use of this new studio classroom

for our introductory physics courses and will provide evidence that this highly

interactive environment produces better learning outcomes for students.

Manher Jariwala is a Lecturer in the Department of Physics at Boston University,

where he teaches in the introductory physics sequence. He is also the director of

the Physics Learning Assistant (LA) program, offering early teaching experiences

to undergraduates, and a member of the BU PhysTEC team, an APS- and NSF-
supported effort to recruit and train more high school physics teachers.