MARK GREENMAN
Project Accelerate
NSF Awards: 1720914
Economically disadvantaged and underrepresented high school students in many urban, rural, and small suburban communities don’t have access to Advanced Placement® (AP®) courses. Lacking opportunity to access rigorous physics courses in high school, these demographic groups are hard pressed to compete in physical science related STEM fields and academic programs with their peers from more affluent communities. Project Accelerate, a National Science Foundation funded project, is a partnership program between Boston University (BU) and high schools to bring a College Board accredited AP® Physics 1 course to schools not offering this opportunity. Preliminary result indicates that students participating in Project Accelerate do as well or better than their peers enrolled in traditional classroom-based AP® Physics 1 classes.
Project Accelerate
NSF Awards: 1720914
Economically disadvantaged and underrepresented high school students in many urban, rural, and small suburban communities don’t have access to Advanced Placement® (AP®) courses. Lacking opportunity to access rigorous physics courses in high school, these demographic groups are hard pressed to compete in physical science related STEM fields and academic programs with their peers from more affluent communities. Project Accelerate, a National Science Foundation funded project, is a partnership program between Boston University (BU) and high schools to bring a College Board accredited AP® Physics 1 course to schools not offering this opportunity. Preliminary result indicates that students participating in Project Accelerate do as well or better than their peers enrolled in traditional classroom-based AP® Physics 1 classes.
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Mark Greenman
Research Fellow
Help close the access gap to success in physical science, engineering, I.T. and many premedical careers and academic programs. Consider having your high school join with Project Accelerate bringing a blended College Board accredited AP Physics 1 course to your school.
Sarah Wille
Senior Research Scientist
Thanks for sharing your important work! I'd love to hear about some of the key barriers you've had to navigate in recruitment, student retention in the course, and how those things differ for the online and in-person experiences. Looking forward to learning more!
James F. Keating
I have students in my college Physics Laboratory, that could benefit from this program. Most of my students are science majors but have never had a Physics course. Also Physics is a requirement for graduation for science majors.
Dan Moriarty
I'm curious how the online portion works. Is that where the kids get most of the traditional notes and then do the labs with teachers back at their schools? It sound very promising as a means to expose more students to AP Physics 1.
Mark Greenman
Research Fellow
The online instructional tool provides for an interactive platform where the physics instruction is provided. This tool is short on "video professor" and long on engaging simulations mixed in with more traditional text and visual information. There is an abundance of practice problems including practice in mathematical model building from experimental data. There are 28 graded virtual explorations, 26 graded homework assignment, 26 graded quizzes and 4 end of term graded AP style tests that are proctored and timed.
Hands-on laboratories are offered through a variety of venues. Our commuting students (i.e., student in commuting distance to Boston University or West Virginia University) come to the campus for a weekly 2 and 1/2 hour laboratory session facilitated by undergraduate Teaching Assistants trained in engagement strategies and typical physics preconceptions. Our "distant" partners are provided with a variety of options to provide explorations similar to those offered in our "commuting" situation.
Thank you for your questions.
Mark
John Macuk
If you have a chance for your students to work with Mark, make them take his class and let Nature take its course!
James F. Keating
I have students from underdeveloped countries, if they were given the opportunity, like Mark's Program, would benefit.
Jake Foster
It is great to have such support for underrepresented students in the Boston area to provide the boost to STEM pathways and options! If an institution elsewhere in the country wanted to set up a similar program, what would you say are 2 or 3 critical points to attend to? Also, are you seeing any change in higher education institutions use of intro physics class as a gatekeeper to many STEM careers? It seems at least a few engineering programs, for instance, have flipped their physics-to-engineering pathways in order to engage students in freshman level engineering courses and increase interest and retention of underrepresented students.
Mark Greenman
Research Fellow
We are prepared to partner with other Universities that might want to replicate this program for high schools in their state. We already have established such a partnership relationship with West Virginia University and last year had 5 partner high schools participating from West Virginia. We also have high school partners in NY and NH working directly with Project Accelerate staff associated with Boston University. The program is offered in a "commuting student " and "distant student" model. In both models, hands-on explorations based on inquiry strategies are provided.
Good to hear from you Jake.
Best wishes.
Mark
Tony King
The program has given an important opportunity to the students at our school
Pati Ruiz
Dean of Studies
This is such a great option for students in many situations. Does your course have math prerequisites or is there math content embedded in your curriculum? I am also curious about the structure of the course itself and how the course is delivered.
Mark Greenman
Research Fellow
There are math prerequisites and there is math support built into the online instructional tool.
The math prerequisite is "successful" completion of an Algebra 1, Geometry and Algebra 2 sequence or equivalent. We build in separate and optional tutorial sections on vector manipulations when introducing projectile motion and progressively remove step by step strategies on mathematical modeling from experimental data as the course progresses.
However, if students have mastered the math prerequisite sequence, they will have all the mathematics skills necessary for success in the course.
Thank you for your question.
Mark
Pati Ruiz
Christopher Atchison
Associate Professor
Excellent start, Mark. I look forward to seeing your effectiveness outcomes. What barriers are your students facing with the content currently? Are there accommodations in place for students who need to ramp up their content knowledge for the AP course? Also, how are you supporting the teachers in these schools who might not have presented AP courses before this program?
Mark Greenman
Research Fellow
Hi Christopher,
Preliminary results look very promising. However, we too are looking forward to amassing sufficient data to make more definitive claims concerning the effectiveness of this program. There is no prerequisite concerning background knowledge in physics. For more than half our students this is their first exposure to physics in high school. We only work with schools that are not offering AP Physics. Hence very few of our high school liaisons have taught AP Physics or even an honors physics course. About half our high school partner liaisons are not physics teachers. The high school liaison's main function is to facilitate communication between the school and Project Accelerate staff. Also to encourage and "nag" students about keeping up with the due date schedule. We do inform the partner school administration that teachers can also enroll in the course to support deeper learning of physics concepts and support schools wishing to provide such teachers with professional development credit.
Thank you for your questions.
Mark
Christopher Atchison
Associate Professor
Thanks, Mark. Now that you're engaged with school partners, what areas of need do you have? Are there any additional stakeholders that you feel should be involved, to support either the teachers, the students, or your project staff?
Kristin Newton
This sounds like a great way to help level the playing field in terms of access to AP Physics. I look forward to hearing about how it goes expanding the model to more schools!
Ben Dusen
Keep up the good work Mark. Good to know that you're out there making a difference. BU is lucky to have you!
Mark Greenman
Research Fellow
Good to hear from you Ben. Mark.
Katie Widmann
It's awesome that you have so many students scoring so high on the AP exam. What do you think you are doing differently that the difference in scores between your students and other students is so drastically different?
Mark Greenman
Research Fellow
Katie,
Thank you for your kind remarks. Although our preliminary data was very encouraging, until we gather more data with many more students, we are not making any heroic claims. We will keep the "community" posted as we process and analyze more data.
Mark
Br. Zoppo
Our school has been grateful for the opportunity to participate in this worthwhile endeavor.
Steven Obenhaus
I just did this analysis last month.
The Center for STEM Learning at the University of Kansas has analyzed teacher data provided by the State of Kansas from 2006 – 2015. While there are more than 5000 secondary math and science teachers in Kansas, only a handful teach physics with the number of teachers teaching at least one physics course declining over the decade shown in the table below.
Year
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
Physics teachers
368
377
366
337
312
278
264
203
181
203
These data show that with 409 high schools in the entire state, over half the high schools in Kansas do not teach any physics courses.
The reduction in physics teaching is not due to decreased enrollment in the state. From a low of 400,324 in 2006 to a high of 442,930 in 2010, attendance held steady around 420,000 over the last four years in the table above.
Mark Greenman
Research Fellow
Steven,
This is exactly the very large hole Project Accelerate is designed to fill.
Let's get together, greeenman@bu.edu, and see if we can work to support physics learning in Kansas.
Best wishes,
Mark D. Greenman
Tory Spenla
I think it’s so important to reach out to those underrepresented groups and give everyone access and opportunity. Project Accelerate seems like a great way to give students’ access to more opportunity.
Tory Spenla
I think it’s so important to reach out to those underrepresented groups and give everyone access and opportunity. Project Accelerate seems like a great way to give students’ access to more opportunity.
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