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Assigning to Groups

Pre-presentation Exercise

The sheets on your tables have the names of 24 “students.” Assuming that this is your course roster, assign students to groups.

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Assigning to Groups

Pre-presentation Exercise

Questions?

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Towards Best Practices �for In-class Group Work

Mario Belloni

Mario Belloni, Dan Boye, Wolfgang Christian, Brandon Eberly, Tim Gfroerer, Anthony Kuchera, Michelle Kuchera, Kristen Thompson, John Yukich

Pranjal Singh, Connor O’Leary, and Jennifer Jones

Stephanie Cudo, Keith Frye, and Sue Fabros

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Acknowledgments

Esther Lherisson, Barbara Lom, Brent Maher, Byron McCrae, Hilton Kelly, Lauren Stutts (the HHMI Leadership Team), David Jackson (Dickenson), Steven Wolf (East Carolina University), Eugenia Etkina (Rutgers).

Julia Bauer, Peter Clark, Catherine Cole, Itzy Cuellar, Sedem Dankwa, Mason Davis, Jaime Felipe, Sarah Harrington, Brandon Harris, Lilly Hennessey, Will Hopkins, Ashley Ip, Alison Jennings, Anna Jones, Hana Kamran, Aalim Khaderi, Christian Krenzlin, Anthony Lopez, Ari Maki, Alexis Pheng, Charlie Putrino, Andrea Shill, Mahia Sultana, Talar Terzian, Carlos Vegas, Jason Zheng, Kerry Zhu.

Supported in part by Davidson College Capital Fund for PHY 125, Davidson’s HHMI FIRST grant, and the Davidson College Physics Departmental Budget.

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Outline

Traditional Laboratory Structure
New Course Structure

Group Work

Research/Best Practices
Implementation

Future (Lessons Learned)

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PHY 120/PHY 130

Laboratory

1, 2.5- to 3-hour laboratory (class split in ½)
Laboratory exercises follow instruction
Students typically work in pairs
Original pairing by student choice
Pairings change periodically (at least once a semester)

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Designing PHY 125 Laboratory

integrated laboratory/classroom
every class starts with an experiment
guided discovery: experiment before theory
work in targeted groups (home and assigned)
freedom, designing, tinkering, and creativity
create a model from experiment

individual lab “reports” for shorter labs
group lab reports for longer labs

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Group Work: Research/Best Practices

https://lse.ascb.org/evidence-based-teaching-guides/group-work/

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Group Work: Research/Best Practices

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https://lse.ascb.org/evidence-based-teaching-guides/group-work/

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Group Work Best Practices: Research

Size: groups of 3-5 students are best.

Composition: gender-balanced, ethnically diverse, with a mixture of problem-solving styles are best.

Never isolate women or students of color (3 or 2)

No consensus on how to use “performance” / “ability”

low performers better in heterogeneous groups
medium performers better in homogeneous groups
high performers = doesn’t matter

All DC students are high performance/ability
We used MAT/PHY experience (low, moderate, high)

Assign roles

Tasks that involve complex or ill-structured problems

Equal participation by submission of individual contributions

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PHY 125 Class Day Schedule

Start every class with a kinesthetic exercise, sampler platter, micro, mini, regular and multi-class/part experiment.
Work in home or assigned groups.
Home groups 3-5 and assigned groups of 3.
Handout with goals, roles, and instructions.
Lab results written in each student’s notebook.
All exercises end with an individual 2-3 sentence reflection.

Followed with class discussion of results, model, generalization, mathematical model description.

Followed by problem solving techniques and problem solving (time permitting).

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PHY 125 Course Best Practices

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PHY 125 Course Best Practices

First Day of Class

Inclusivity exercises related to group work
Put class into perspective
Syllabus
4x6 card
FCI

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PHY 125 and YOU

4 x 6 card: To be turned into me

What is your greatest quality, strength, or accomplishment (copy to notebook)
Preferred name and pronouns
Year and major(s)/intended major(s)
What excites you right now?
Favorite artist/genre (art, film, music, etc.)
PC/Mac? Android/iOS?
Math preparation (strengths/weaknesses)
Physics preparation (AP, regular, none)
Most important thing I should know about you
Anything else you want to share

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PHY 125 Course Best Practices

First Day: Set tone for group work
Completed 4x6 card turned in to me
Used it to inform conversations during the “required” 10-minute office visit of all students during week #1 (drop a quiz).
Got to know students (majors), accommodations, health, real experience which was useful for assigning groups.

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PHY125 – Fall 2019

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Fall 2019

Tim Gfroerer

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The “Group Work Resume”�for Out-of-Class Work

Chris Marsicano

Acknowledgements:

Brenda Mackenzie (Vanderbilt)

John Warner (College of Charleston)

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Outline

Client-based Group Work

Problems with Out-of-Class Group Work

Grading
Group Dynamics

Group Work Resume

Process
Execution

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Client-Based Group Work

Public Policy Research

Client-based, problem-focused research that relies on the analysis of interventions that benefit the public in some way.

Example research question:

“How can North Carolina best fulfill its Constitutional obligation to make college ‘as free as practicable’ for its citizens?”

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Client-Based Group Work

“Seeing the full board”

Bounded Rationality
Subject-Matter Expertise

Group Work is main mode of policy research.

BCG, EY, Deloitte, Booz-Allen, etc.
OMB, GAO, CBO, etc.

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Client-Based Group Work