  An active learning physics course (treatment) was re-organized in an attempt
to increase students' problem solving abilities. This re-organized course
covered all of the relevant concepts in the first 6 weeks with the final 4
weeks spent in practice at solving complicated problems (those requiring
students to use higher order cognitive abilities). A second active learning
course (control) was taught in the same quarter by the same instructor using
the same curricular materials but covering material in the standard
(chapter-by-chapter) order. After accounting for incoming student
characteristics, students from the treatment course scored significantly better
than the control for two outcome measures: i) the final exam and ii) their
immediately subsequent physics course. More importantly, students from minority
groups who are underrepresented in physics had final exam scores as well as
class grades that were indistinguishable from the rest of their class if and
only if they were in the treatment class. Finally, many of the students in this
cohort took a Concepts First course in their third quarter of introductory
physics. The students who took at least one Concepts First course are found to
have significantly higher rates of graduation with a STEM major than those
students from this cohort who did not take a Concepts First course.
