Chinese Journal of Science Education


Vol. 11 No. 4 , Pages 391 - 406 , 2003

From Harvard to Feng-Chia: The Implementation and Outcomes of Interactive Teaching in University Physics (Article written in chinese)

Whei-jen CHANG

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to describe the implementation and outcomes of an innovative teaching program in university physics, which was conducted by the author at Feng-Chia University. The results were compared with a similar program at Harvard University. The central themes of the programs at Feng-Chia and Harvard were consistent, while many details of the adopted teaching strategies were different. With respect to the modification in teaching, both universities introduced everyday life examples to facilitate the students’ conceptual comprehension, reduced complex manipulations, and modified the didactic teaching by encouraging student discussion in class. The teaching program is defined as “Interactive Teaching”. This paper also elaborates on the rationales that underpin “Interactive Teaching”, as well as explaining the differences in the implementation strategies between the two programs. In this study, the tools for evaluating the learning outcomes included two standardized tests originating from the US and a questionnaire regarding affective learning outcomes, which was developed by the author. Three groups of students participated in this study, i.e., an interactive group taught by the author, and two traditional groups taught by the author and other physics professors respectively. The comparison amongst the three groups of students may provide better insights into the outcomes of “Interactive Teaching”. The results showed that the Interactive Teaching at Feng-Chia seemed to be beneficial to the students’ academic performance and the affective learning outcomes. Interactive Teaching provides a feasible direction for improving the teaching of university physics in Taiwan. Further implementation and evaluation is suggested.

Keywords: interactive teaching; Constructivism; teaching innovation; university physics; conceptual development

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