Assessing Instructional Reformation in Introductory Astronomy

At California State University Fullerton, the introductory astronomy course, Physics 120, has been taught as a traditional large lecture course. The course has no prerequisites, therefore many students take it to fulfill their general education requirements. We introduced a reformed instructional format into this course, in the fall of 2011, including: peer instruction, lecture tutorials, think-pair-share, and other activities. Our main focus was to increase student conceptual knowledge. In order to assess the effectiveness of the changes to this course, we tested student understanding of the subject at the beginning and end of the semester. We present results of that assessment here. In fall 2012, two sessions of this course will be taught by the same instructor, one large class and one small. We will implement the same teaching methods in both sessions and conduct assessment as before. We hope to add to the data on how class size affects student learning in an active classroom environment. This research is supported in part by the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation (LSAMP) program.