Our Goal: To provide, on a national scale, access to a rigorous introductory college level physic course to high school students who do not have access to Advanced Placement Physics at their home school.

A National Problem: Many underserved high school students in urban, rural, and small suburban communities don’t have access to AP® Physics courses. Lacking opportunity underserved groups are hard pressed to compete in STEM fields and academic programs with their peers from more affluent communities. This lack of opportunity contributes to the national problem of too few underserved students entering academic and professional programs in STEM.

Scaling Project Accelerate: Through a National Science Foundation award (NSF #1720914), Project Accelerate has moved from a Massachusetts initiative to a multi-state program including partner high schools in Massachusetts, West Virginia, New York, New Hampshire and Minnesota. We continue to expand to additional states as the program matures.

The Program: Project Accelerate, a partnership program, combines the supportive infrastructures from the students’ traditional school with a highly interactive blended private edX online course. The primary instructional tool is the private online program containing instructional scaffolding specific to the target population, multiple assessment tools, simulations, and a suite of virtual explorations emphasizing science process practices. Although instruction is provided primarily through an online instructional tool, we want to emphasize the partnership aspect of the program. Students are not left to move through the course at their own pace. We establish a close relationship with the partner school through regular communications between an appointed high school building liaison and a university liaison from Project Accelerate who has responsibility for monitoring and working with no more than 25 students participating in the program.

Preliminary Results: Participating students do as well as their peers enrolled in traditional classroom-based AP Physics 1 classes. In addition, students show increased interest in pursuing STEM academic programs post high school as a result of participating Project Accelerate.

Want to Learn More or Become a Project Accelerate Partner High School?

Contact Mark D. Greenman, Director of Project Accelerate at greenman@bu.edu.