Currently, I teach calculus-based introductory mechanics (PHYS 211). So far, I've settled on the following order:
Basics and preliminaries (units, significant figures, measurement uncertainty)
Vectors (a top contender for most important mathematical tool in physics)
Forces in equilibrium (immediate application of vectors)
Kinematics (introduction to acceleration and non-equilibrium)
Circular motion and systems (the classic ramps and pulleys)
Impulse and momentum (where I hit them with a bunch of fun, super counterintuitive questions)
Work and energy (another perspective on quantifying force)
Rotation (revisiting forces, kinematics, impulse/momentum, and work/energy with new variables)
Simple harmonic motion (compression of rotation into one dimension)
Universal gravitation (synthesizing course concepts at the cosmic scale)
I've attempted to add as much active learning and unorthodox projects to my teaching as possible, but I didn't take into account is that doing so is very difficult when I haven't even fully developed a teaching cadence yet. So, here are the aspects so far where I've supplemented or deviated from a traditional lecture-based style:
Tutorials on various topics (ultimate goal is to have tutorials on all topics)
Explicitly including prior exam questions on future exams to encourage reviewing past material, learning from mistakes, and reduce ambiguity/anxiety on what to study
Peer tutoring survey and distribution: To spread the knowledge and encourage strong students to help struggling students study more successfully, I made a simple form asking whether students were looking for a peer tutor, peer tutee, or study group, as well as their contact information. I then make the list of tutors and study group searchers available to the class. There seems to be a rather significant appetite for this.
Explicit rewards for studying with others: In my own undergraduate courses, we were encouraged to work together on homework assignments, etc. as long as we all wrote up our own solutions independently. However, I find the danger usually veers in the other direction, in that students are typically too shy or can't be bothered to get together in the first place (perhaps this is a result of changing trends). This is a shame, as students are typically in an equal or better position to teach one another than I am, since they have a much better idea of where the struggles lie, and even any two students who are both struggling typically have complementary gaps in knowledge--meaning they can often make surprisingly deep progress. As such, I make every effort to impress upon my students that working together is a great idea that ought to be the norm, and I don't bother as much with emphasizing individual accountability; that much should be obvious after an exam.
Individual conferences with students post-exam: With the rise of AI, shortening attention spans, and a wider student body that is recruited on the basis of funding a school more than genuinely chasing knowledge, it can be difficult for students to diagnose the issue with poor performance, particularly if they were never pushed to develop good study habits. Though I teach upwards of 100 students each semester, I have enough time during lab periods to meet with each student for about 5 minutes, during which I go over what they did wrong, have them explain their mistakes to me so that I can passively evaluate their knowledge, ask about their studying approach and offer concrete suggestions, wax poetic about the nature of learning and embracing the struggle, tell them about resources they may not have been aware of, and/or offer emotional support and reassure them that they can do better on the next one. In principle, I can also use this opportunity to catch cheating and excessive AI reliance. It is essentially an oral exam, but to circumvent most students' crippling anxieties over oral exams, I frame it as an opportunity to earn points back (which I always enjoy doing). So far I have gotten a very positive response; I feel that I am able to get my message across much more clearly and effectively than repeating it at the front of the room each day and hoping it sticks. I can also spend less time agonizing over how many points I should give for this vs. that mistake and whether I'm interpreting their work right. This pairs very well with a mastery-based grading scheme (I give anywhere from 0-4 points for each question, with 3 being "proficient" and a 3.9 option for "pretty minor math mistake, but flawless application of the concepts.")
Abandoned projects:
10-minute teaching: During lab periods, I allowed students to sign up to present a physics topic to the class. The theory was that students could learn from teaching others and learn better from one another's perspectives than purely my own. I would be on standby to offer clarification, synthesis, and intervention if the conversation took a significantly wrong turn. However, the student population that I work with is generally not prepared to construct a well-developed presentation, and even the strongest students can wither under the pressure of public speaking. That said, my final goal of observing what students took away from my lectures (including the state of their knowledge, what they still lacked, common misconceptions, etc.) was still met.
Final reflection: I had my students write a one-page essay on their learning experience for the class; in its original form, it was supposed to be summary of the progress that they should have been documenting over the semester, but very few students were diligent enough to perform said documentation without significant scaffolding that I wasn't equipped to provide, so I dropped that requirement. This worked somewhat well my first time teaching, and it gave me insights into how students viewed me, my class, and physics in general (it was very validating), but as time went on, more of them started resembling what I received when I asked AI to write such an essay for me. Nowadays, I think it's dead on arrival, particularly since the students whose thoughts I'm most interested in (the ones doing the most poorly) are the ones most likely to outsource the writing. Still, I have received some heartwarming stories and sentiments from both consistently excellent students and underprepared students who discovered their agency and worked their way toward success.
I'd like to keep adding and experimenting with more projects in the future. As I teach both the lecture and lab for the course, the students do get a sizable amount of group work and active learning on a weekly basis, so I don't have to feel particularly guilty yet about a lecture that isn't as active as it could be.
The number of students asking me whether I teach electricity and magnetism (PHYS 212) or any other physics class they'll take has gone up every semester. I feel so bad saying no. One day soon, this will change.