Work in progress — Application of Mastery Learning in an introductory mathematical physics course

A Mastery approach for learning Engineering Circuit Analysis at the University of Massachusetts Amherst (UMA) has been successfully implemented, with more than 200 students experiencing the approach. It has yet to be demonstrated if the Mastery Learning approach can be successfully implemented in a different field of study. At the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG), many students enter their first year underprepared for both physics and calculus. Therefore, we have created a one-semester course to help students develop the skills needed to succeed in these courses. In this Work-in-Progress, we will summarize the Mastery approach as well as the circumstances that led the Department of Physics and Astronomy to offer this course. We will describe the course and its first implementation during Fall 2009, and we will look at some preliminary results, including students' performance in and attitudes toward the course. Finally, we will make a case for implementing this course for all engineering and science majors, specifically, everyone who plans on taking physics as part of their college major.