What's Important to Us?

Samantha Snelling (Physics)

What’s Important to Us? Understanding Cultural Differences between Science Disciplines

By identifying the different cultural aspects and learning styles of the departmental disciplines that take General Physics I hope to foster a better understanding of how our students learn and to build more effective teaching principles for the Physics Small Group Learning Program. To develop a list of disciplinary areas of emphasis I took notes during a number of conversations with both students and faculty in Math, Physics, Biology and Chemistry. From these important areas of difference I have chosen to focus on the Biological emphasis of system discovery as a guiding principle for the creation of a series of interrelated Small Group Lessons.