1. Using Effective Pedagogical Strategies
from First Year Physics in Other
Courses
Checkpoint Model
Jason Donev, Edwin Cey, Yuen-ying Carpenter, Nancy Chibry,
Rob Thompson, Preshanth Jagannathan, M ahin Afshari and
Matthew Bumstead, University of Calgary; Mandana
Sobhanzadeh and Mehdi Dehghani, Mount Royal University

2. Obstacles
• How do we increase student
engagement in all sized classes?
• How do we help students to make
connections and allow for a deeper
understanding of the material?
• How to we foster discovery through
trial and error?

3. Obstacles
• How do we increase retention of
material that has been learned?
• How do we increase communication
amongst students and between
students and staff?

4. Checkpoint Model
• Each checkpoint consists of a series of
questions
• 2-3 checkpoints per session (lab or class)
• Group work is highly recommended
• Consultation with TA/Instructor prior to
moving to next checkpoint
• Full marks for completion (% of grade
varies per class)

5. Checkpoint Spreadsheet
QuickTime™ and a
decompressor
are needed to see this picture.

6. Checkpoint Model
At the University of Calgary we have used the
checkpoint model in the following courses:
• High School Physics upgrade
• Nuclear Power
• Introductory Physics
• Introductory Statistics (in progress)

7. McDermott, Heron and Shaffer Knight

8. Nuclear Power
Chapter 1 from Jeff Bryan's book
"It was quite the most incredible event that ever happened to me in my life. It was almost as incredible as if you had fired a 15-inch
shell at a piece of tissue paper and it came back and hit you."
--Ernest Rutherford
1. Open the Phet: http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/build-an-atom and play around with it.
1. Discuss when something is an ion and when it isn’t.
2. Discuss what is needed for the protons and neutrons to be ‘stable’. What does stable mean?
3. What determines chemical name? What is necessary for alchemy (changing elements)?
4. Play the game for a bit.
Open the phet: http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/rutherford-scattering and play around with it
1. What happens to the alpha particles when thye come near the nucleus?
2. Explain the difference between 'impact parameter' and rmin.
3. Discuss what happens to the scattering angle as the impact parameter changes.
4. Under what conditions can you get scattering at angles greater than 90 degrees?
5. In this simulation where are the electrons? Explain.
6. Discuss the plum pudding model and the solar system type model. How does scattering alpha particle explain the difference? Why
was Rutherford so surprised?
7. What happens to the impact parameter for a given angle as the number of protons goes up? The number of neutrons? Explain.
8. What happens to the scattering angle for a given impact parameter of the kinetic energy of your alpha particle goes up?
Call the prof over to check your work.

9. Entering data
Introductory Stats
Enter the GPA values into the first column, C1, starting at row 1 of the worksheet in the DATA window, genders identifiers in the second column, C2, and rating in
the third column, C3.
Enter “GPA” in the shaded blank cell under the C1, ”Gender” in C2 and “rating” in C3. This assigns a name for the variable in that column.
Before proceeding, be sure that the highlighted cell is not one of your data values – click anywhere else on the worksheet.
Creating a pie chart
Minitab instructions: Graph>Pie Chart enter “Gender” in the “categorical variable box”. You have to click inside the “categorical variable” box in order for the
different qualitative (categorical) variables to appear.
Question 3. (a) Create a pie chart for gender. Comment on it.
(b) Create a pie chart for rating. Comment on it.
(c) Create a pie chart for GPA. Comment on it.
(d) Why is it important to know the difference between qualitative and quantitative data?
Producing a bar chart
Minitab Instructions: Graph>Bar Chart four pictures appear. Since we are just dealing with one data set, click on SIMPLE then click “OK”. You have to click inside
the “categorical variable” box in order for the different qualitative variables to appear.
Double click the mouse on “C2 Gender” in the left box or click once and then press SELECT. This enters the name of your variable as one to be graphed. {Or type
C2 or “Gender” in the GRAPH VARIABLES cell.}Click “OK”.
Question 4. (a) Create a simple bar chart for males and females in this data set. What does this tell you?
(b) Create a bar chart for rating in this data set. What does this tell you?
Producing a Histogram
Minitab instructions: From the MENU BAR select GRAPH > HISTOGRAM... four pictures appear. Since we are just dealing with one data set, click on SIMPLE
then click OK.
Click the mouse on “C1 GPA” the left of the box: then press SELECT or double click on “C1 GPA”. This enters the name of your variable as one to be graphed. {Or
type C1 in the GRAPH VARIABLES cell.}
Click “OK”. Minitab will automatically assign class boundaries for the data. This may not always be best.
Question 5. Produce the histogram for GPA and comment on the graph.
Now, double click anywhere inside the histogram. A dialogue box appears. Click on “Binning”. You will see another dialogue box. Choose “Cutpoint” for Interval
Type. Note from the data set that the minimum data value is -2.7 and the maximum data value is 3.5. Thus, the class width should be the same and the class
boundaries should be designed to include all the values or a warning will appear. In the “Midpoint/Cutpoint positions” box type - 3 -2.5 -2 -1.5 -1 -0.5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2
2.5 3 3.5 4
Question 6. (a) Vary the class boundaries (e.g. -3 -2.75 -2.5 -2.25 ...) and produce the histogram for GPA. Try a smaller class width. Try a wider class width
(b) Which class boundaries should you use and why?
Checkpoint 1: Call your TA over to discuss your answers before proceeding.

10. Results for High School
physics upgrade
• Number of students attending office hours
increased dramatically
• Overall marks improved

11. Results for Nuclear Power
• 1st midterm went up 15 percentage points
• 2nd & 3rd midterms were more challenging
than previous years, yet grades increased
• Number of students attending office hours
increased dramatically
• Overall marks improved

12. Office hours without
checkpoint model

13. Office hours with
checkpoint model

14. Results for Intro Physics
• Number of students attending office
hours increased dramatically
• Attendance increased from 10-15% to
100% in TA lead sessions
• Overall marks improved

15. Results for Introductory
Stats
• Number of students attending office
hours increased dramatically
• Almost 100% attendance in labs
• Students seem more enthusiastic about
statistics and the applications
• Deeper understanding of course
material
• Marks still pending

16. Stats lab without checkpoint model

17. Stats lab with checkpoint model

18. Requirements
• TAs must be well prepared. This
requires extra training on equipment,
computer packages and material
• Initial implementation requires many
hours of preparation for checkpoint
creation

19. Thank you