Chapter 5 Designing and Teaching a New Sophomore Course: Techniques of Theoretical Mechanics
During spring term 2016, the Paradigms 2.0 committee had met to review the current upper division physics curriculum and to generate suggestions for improvement. From these discussions emerged a plan to initiate a new course for sophomores:Techniques of Theoretical Mechanics. This was one of two new courses designed to ease the transition from the introductory physics courses to the junior level Paradigms in Physics courses. A member of the Paradigms 2.0 committee assumed responsibility for developing this new sophomore course, to be offered Spring 2017.
The University's course catalogue describes this new 3-credit course as “Newtonian, Lagrangian, and Hamiltonian classical mechanics. Special relativity with relativistic mechanics”. It lists as prerequisites the second term in the introductory physics calculus-based sequence, PH 212, and Math 254 (Vector Calculus).
The course met Monday, Wednesday, Friday for an hour for ten weeks during Spring 2017 in the same setting and at the same time slot as the Physics for Contemporary Challenges course. Twenty nine students were enrolled, including students currently in the introductory physics courses, some engineering students, and some upper level physics majors enrolled in Paradigms in Physics courses.
Discussed below are the goals of this new course, challenges in undertaking this effort, surprises that this faculty member experienced in designing and teaching the course, aspects of the course that went well, and aspects that helped in the design and instructional process.