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Section 1.1 Features of the Paradigms Project

In 1996, the Paradigms in Physics Project at Oregon State University reformed the entire upper-division curriculum for physics majors. This reform involved both a rearrangement of content to better reflect the way professional physicists think about the field and also the infusion of a number of evidence-based interactive pedagogies that are known to engage students more effectively in a discipline. The resulting curriculum has become a local and national model for curricular reform and includes a variety of active-engagement teaching strategies: interactive small-group problem-solving, project-based classes, kinesthetic activities, technology-based visualization activities, etc.

The essential features of the Paradigms Program are:

  • Truly holistic reform (the whole upper-division major), including changes to the scope and sequence of courses, pedagogical strategies, hidden curriculum, and modernization of content;

  • Attention to what students actually know and are able to do: from routine formative assessment to formal physics education research (PER);

  • Pedagogical strategies that align with what is known about how people learn (implemented gradually as we learn more);

  • Just-in-time development of mathematical skills and knowledge:

  • A computational physics sequence which parallels the physics content of the junior year paradigms courses;

  • A sustained faculty learning community which has been meeting every three weeks for 28 years (as of 2024);

  • A collaborative planning process for reform (characterized by respect for all participants, including undergraduate students and graduate and undergraduate TAs and LAs) that incorporates department-wide vision and experience;

  • Content alignment designed by experienced content experts, including a plan for the contributions of each courses to major conceptual physics themes;

  • Grass roots reform, encouraged by the department chair and upper administration, creating ownership for the curriculum by a majority of physics faculty and instructors;

  • A rigorous internal and external evaluation process that includes anonymous formative input from students.

The Paradigms project has become far more than a curriculum redesign project. By attending to the whole list of features above in an organic growth model, we have become a laboratory that studies questions of how to engage students with physically-relevant and mathematically-deep content, how instructional teams can be developed and supported and learn to welcome new members, how departments can develop, share, and sustain a vision for curriculum and assessment, how discipline-based education researchers (DBER) can best take advantage of active-engagement instructional settings to explore how students learn, how to disseminate the complex and interrelated curricular structures we have developed, and how to evaluate the results of this multifaceted process with rigor and integrity.

Now, in 2024, we have developed nearly three decades of experience with these questions and can offer a rich exemplar to the nation in answer to many of the deep questions which have been raised by the DBER report [1] and are reflected in the IUSE [2] and other NSF RFPs. In the sections below, we briefly discuss the varied branches of our work.