ADAPT Program: Lesson Plans
Date of this Version
1988
Abstract
The ADAPT Program for college freshmen was offered at the University of Nebraska Lincoln from 1975 to 1997. The program always included two semesters of three credit hours of physics. The fall semester of laboratories is given in this pdf file. The physics topics were arranged to develop more and more advanced reasoning and data analysis skills, from linear functions to power law functions to exponential functions. These analysis skills required the students to master Cartesian graphs, log-log graphs and semi-log graphs. All of these laboratories were organized according to the Robert Karplus learning cycle. Near the end of the semester the students were introduced to the concepts of Piaget by the use of the Karplus film, Formal Reasoning Patterns.
After 1981 the second semester of ADAPT physics was called Problem Solving Using Computers and involved the students in solving a variety of problems using applications software on Macintosh computers.