Reshaping large-class undergraduate science courses: the weekly workshop

Abstract

I describe the rationale behind the introduction and practical details of implementing weekly workshops, recently introduced to replace traditional tutorial-plus-laboratory activities in a large introductory undergraduate physics course. The case for introducing these activities is made, together with their role in the course which has, over a period of several years, evolved into a blended mode of delivery integrating a substantial amount of online material whilst still retaining the crucial ingredient of ‘presence’ in face-to-face teaching. The effectiveness of the workshops is qualitatively evaluated.