THE ORIGINAL PRISMS

The original PRISMS, made available to teachers through a variety of funding sources including the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education, consisted of a teacher’s manual and a computer test bank. The PRISMS teacher’s manual contained approximately 130 student activities accompanied by corresponding teacher notes. The materials encompassed an entire year of high school physics instruction. The original PRISMS was not designed to replace textbooks, but rather to provide teachers with resources, ideas and instructional strategies. The PRISMS computer test bank, available in Macintosh and PC format, contained over 2,000 questions. These questions were keyed to common objectives found in most high school physics courses and were ranked by levels of reasoning according to Bloom’s Taxonomy. The PRISMS manual and test bank were made available through the University of Northern Iowa Physics Department.