Student engagement through community building: Making the case for a team-based approach to learning physics

Abstract

This paper provides an overview of a team-based approach to learning physics in a second-level course for non-majors entitled Light, Sound, Action (LSA) taught at XX University. Designed using a workshop format, LSA provides students numerous opportunities to learn physics using a number of interactive engagement strategies. These interactive engagement strategies provide the backbone for the structure of the course. Using a carefully crafted set of collaborative activities, students in LSA engage in a wide range of experiences in a team setting. Within these collaborative activities are strategies aimed at enhancing communication and building community within the classroom. Perceptions about the team-based collaborative activities in LSA will be presented based on the responses to a short survey sent to students who have taken the course in the past three years. One emergent theme based on these results is that the community-building, team-based activities used in LSA can serve to transcend the classroom experience and carry over into other domains.