Variation of Instructor-Student Interactions in an Introductory Interactive Physics Course

• Main Authors: West, Emily A, Paul, Cassandra A, Webb, David, Potter, Wendell H
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 06-12-2012
• Subjects: Physics - Physics Education
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1212.1494

The physics instruction at UC Davis for life science majors takes place in a
long-standing reformed large-enrollment physics course in which the
discussion/lab instructors (primarily graduate student teaching assistants)
implement the interactive-engagement (IE) elements of the course. Because so
many different instructors participate in disseminating the IE course elements,
we find it essential to the instructors professional development to observe and
document the student-instructor interactions within the classroom. Out of this
effort, we have developed a computerized real-time instructor observation tool
(RIOT) to take data of student-instructor interactions. We use the RIOT to
observe 29 different instructors for five hours each over the course of one
quarter, for a total of about 150 hours of class time, finding that the range
of instructor behaviors is more extreme than previously assumed. In this paper,
we introduce the RIOT and describe how the variation present across 29
different instructors can provide students in the same course with
significantly different course experiences.