Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
[no dialogue].
I'm Steve Daniels, and I'm chair of the Physics Department
at Eastern Illinois University.
We use integrative learning in a number of ways
in our department, and we have some examples
of integrative learning.
Dr. Conwell is a good example for integrative learning in that
the students are studying mathematics and physics
together, so they're getting some horizontal integration.
But it's even cosmic integration, too, as the
example shown has collisions.
Collisions are part of how you play pool or what happens in a
car accident, it happens all over the place, and yet
they're also a basic integral part of phyics.
The basic conservation of momentum is how things are
done at high energy facilities such as Fermilab
or laboratories in Switzerland.
Some specific examples of advanced lab experiments and
integration techniques are from Dr. Joshi's advanced lab program
where he's teaching the students about the adiabatic gas constant
and the universal gas law.
This experiment is an example where the students
get to do integrative learning by going back to
their introductory courses.
They may have to look at data acquisition which
they've learned from say, an introductory course with
Dr. Conwell, or something like that.
Dr. Zou is a faculty member that does mentoring with students,
and she can work one-on-one with each student and give them an
experience that has sort of developed the overall student
and gives them a personal integration that is almost
impossible to get in another way because this is their profession
and at the same time they're training for that profession.
So they get to see how their profession is going to work,
what they're actually doing, they're able to study
open-ended problems which there may or may not be an answer
to the questions that they're trying to answer.
That's just a very good experience for students to be
able to do this at the undergraduate level.
The integrative learning teaches the students overall
what their job will be like in physics.
They're better prepared for the real world when they
get out there if they are heading for a job path because
they've done what the real world expects of them.
They've handled open-ended problems, they're problem
solvers, and this is the integration of all the
different techniques, the cosmic and the global and the vertical
and the horizontal integration pulls together these students
to make them excellent candidates for future
endeavors, whatever that may be.
[no dialogue].