Wednesday, March 03, 2021

Undergraduate labs - quick survey

 I've already posed this survey on a mailing list of US physics + P&A department chairs, but more information would certainly be helpful.  At major US universities,  I'm trying to do a bit of a survey about how departments staff their undergraduate introductory labs (both the physics-for-engineers/majors sequence and the physics-for-biosciences/premeds sequence).  If you have this information and can provide it and identify the university, I would be appreciative.

1) Do you have traditional-style intro labs, or a more active learning/discovery-based/modern pedagogy approach?

2) How many undergrads per lab section, how do they work (e.g. groups of 2) and how many lab TAs (or equivalent) per lab section?

3) Who is doing the supervision - what combo of graduate lab TAs, undergrad lab TAs, NTT instructors?

I've heard back from about 8 programs so far, but more would be helpful.  If you would prefer emailing me rather than using the comments, that's fine as well.

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