Project Accelerate

Mark Greenman and team are using content from BU’s course Preparing for the AP Physics 1 Exam in a small, private online course to determine whether it could effectively provide the College Board’s Advanced Placement physics instruction to at-risk students who otherwise wouldn’t be able to take the class.

All participating schools are from high needs school districts and do not offer their students the opportunity to enroll in AP Physics. Each participating school has a site liaison to facilitate communications between the university site coordinator, participating students and students’ parents/guardians. Students from high schools within public transportation commuting distance attend weekly small group tutoring sessions on the University campus to explore ideas, work on guided problems, develop strategies for problem solving and receive additional support based on individual learning needs. Sessions are facilitated by trained and supervised undergraduate Learning Assistants. Should the results prove promising, the course could be replicated in districts around the country, as many high schools don’t offer AP courses, since they don’t have enough students who have reached that level of achievement.

“Project Accelerate owes its origins to a Boston University Digital Learning & Innovation internal grant. Although most universities, including Boston University, were supporting the development of Massive Open Online Courses, the Digital Learning & Innovation group saw early on the promise of what Greenman and Duffy were trying to do … providing something different, something with more structure and scaffolding, to the ‘average’ young person wanting to engage in online learning. Without the DL&I initial financial and strong technical support Project Accelerate would simply be an idea that never saw the light of day. Project Accelerate owes a great deal to the creative license the DL&I internal grant provided during the critical initial phases of Project Accelerate”

– Mark Greenman

After the two-year pilot phase, Project Accelerate has been awarded the NSF DUE Discovery Research K-12 grant.

Additional Resources:

• Project Accelerate Faculty Voices
• BU Today: Online Physics Class is Expanding the Gateway to STEM
• Read about this project on the edX blog.

Project Team & Partners

Mark Greenman

Project Team greenman@bu.edu

-- Please select a member -- Mark Greenman, Project Team Andrew Duffy, Project Team edX, Partner

• Mark Greenman Project Team
• Andrew Duffy Project Team
• edX Partner

Mark D. Greenman joined the Boston University (BU) physics department as Teacher in Residence for the BU PhysTEC program. Mark is also working with the BU School of Education and physics department supporting the implementation of a new NSF Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship grant, and…Read More

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Mark Greenman

Project Team greenman@bu.edu

Mark D. Greenman joined the Boston University (BU) physics department as Teacher in Residence for the BU PhysTEC program. Mark is also working with the BU School of Education and physics department supporting the implementation of a new NSF Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship grant, and through an APS PAIRS grant he is mentoring and coaching physics teachers at English high school a high needs school within the Boston public school system.

Mark has recently served for 2-years as an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow at the National Science Foundation within the Division of Undergraduate Education (2009-2011). He is a recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching, the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) Paul W. Zitzewitz Award for Excellence in Pre-College Physics Teaching, the Massachusetts’ Council for Technology Education Path Finder Award, the Massachusetts Association of Science Teachers (MAST) Teacher of the Year Award from Essex county, an inductee into the Massachusetts Hall of Fame for Science Educators, and profiled in the Salem News “North Shore 100: Local Leaders Making a Difference in Our Future.”