Theoretical physics laboratory: a scaffolded active learning approach for upper year physics courses

Due to low enrollment sizes and infrequent course offerings, specialized upper year theoretical physics courses have few studies which have been completed in the physics education research literature. Such courses are conventionally delivered in a strict didactic form, where the instructor delivers ~3 independent hour-long lectures per week. Students are often left to work through the related highly complex and lengthy derivations independently, many times avoiding them altogether as they are difficult to incorporate and therefore not emphasized in standard didactic course assessments. To help address this gap we developed a course and physics education research proposal in 2021, a course which we were able to offer and complete the corresponding research study in 2023. In this course we take several approaches which are supported by the education literature, in particular focusing on scaffolded active learning during a single lengthy session, once per week. The single meeting is designed similar to laboratory based learning for experimental courses, and is modeled after popular "escape-rooms", where students must work together to finish a flexible list of tasks. Results from the study provide strong evidence for this course method to be incorporated into upper year physics course offerings. In our presentation we will discuss the course design, research study and results, instructional methodologies, and related literature. We will also provide some sample teaching materials and demonstrate the basic function of the weekly session of the course.