Sixteen years of Collaborative Learning through Active Sense-making in Physics (CLASP) at UC Davis

TL;DR

This paper reviews the implementation and outcomes of the CLASP course at UC Davis, highlighting its focus on active sense-making and peer discussion, which improves student performance in physics and bioscience-related metrics.

Contribution

It introduces a reformed physics course emphasizing active learning and peer interaction, demonstrating improved student outcomes over traditional courses.

Findings

Higher GPAs and MCAT scores for CLASP students

Increased FCI conceptual gains

Improved MPEX-II scores indicating better attitudes towards physics

Abstract

This paper describes our large reformed introductory physics course at UC Davis, which bioscience students have been taking since 1996. The central feature of this course is a focus on sense-making by the students during the five hours per week discussion/labs in which the students take part in activities emphasizing peer-peer discussions, argumentation, and presentations of ideas. The course differs in many fundamental ways from traditionally taught introductory physics courses. After discussing the unique features of CLASP and its implementation at UC Davis, various student outcome measures are presented showing increased performance by students who took the CLASP course compared to students who took a traditionally taught introductory physics course. Measures we use include upper-division GPAs, MCAT scores, FCI gains, and MPEX-II scores.