2023 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

For several years, university education has been moving towards the implementation of active learning methodologies in sciences in which the application of knowledge is incorporated and, above all, the agency and participation of the student takes a key component. This trend has taken different shades and colors depending on the educational level, disciplinary content, culture of the institution, educational structure, among others. Among these methodologies, we highlight the proposal by Sokoloff and Thorton (1997), called Interactive Lecture Demonstration, known as ILD, which allows transforming a passive class into an active one, allowing students to be protagonists in their learning.
The purpose of this work is to evaluate the impact that a modified version of the ILD has in the learning of a physics course and the perception that students have about it. This is particularly important, since 90% is the students are women who tend to feel intimidated by physics topics. The modified ILD has the same three stages as the original ILD, the two main differences consist of who realizes the experiment and when. Specifically, the three phases in the modified IDL are Predict, Experience (by the students working in groups, not the instructor), and Reflect (by groups, not individually). The first phase, prediction, begins with the analysis of a physical situation in which students predict the behavior of the situation based on the knowledge imparted in the session by the teacher This occurs at the end of the exposition by the instructor. The second phase occurs on the lab section of the course, it relates to the experience of the students by realizing the experiment of the situation that they worked on in class. Last, the students, working in groups, carry out the experimentation and at the end they reflect on it. This reflection occurs in their working groups. The Modified ILD unites the theoretical class (mostly exposition by the instructor) with the experimental one to offer to the students an integrative experience. This study involved 47 students from two groups of a first-year university acoustic physics course for speech therapy students.
Applying the Modified ILD active learning methodology, a qualitative study is carried out analyzing the responses of the students to the guides and their conclusions. This study presents the results of the analysis with a focus on determining the scientific skills of students in obtaining data and experimental analysis and evaluating their perception of the course in general. The conclusions delve into the advantages/disadvantages of applying this methodology in this course, as well as a proposal to transfer this methodology to other physics courses.