ABSTRACT
It is a truth universally acknowledged in the higher education literature that to know something, it is necessary to do something. But far less common are accounts by students of the sometimes surprising ways they experience real learning, descriptions of specific classroom strategies to enact the active-learning principle, explanations of the learning science that supports it, and accounts of the costs and benefits to faculty of transforming their teaching to ensure that student learning persists. Students know the difference between 'playing school' and authentic learning, by which the teachers here mean to 'think like a physicist'. Visualization and contextualization are also important. Clark University invested in imaging equipment for the sciences as part of its reform of the curriculum. Several things distinguish Wong's learning in the garage. First, the 'students' own the process, with minimal adult intervention. They know why they are learning, and the reason connects to and stimulates an existing passion.
