Section 4.1 Resuming Paradigms 2.0 Committee meetings
¶The four members of the Paradigms 2.0 Committee resumed meeting during winter term of the third year of implementation (2019) in order to share their impressions of the changes underway and to identify issues that might need to be addressed. The members included the PI, who had returned from sabbatical and resumed teaching Math Bits in all of the junior-level physics courses as well as teaching one of the junior-level paradigms in physics courses; the associate professor who had redesigned and continued teaching the computational physics courses associated with the junior-level paradigms in physics courses; this associate professor also was mentoring a new faculty member who had been assigned to teach a junior-level paradigm in physics course that the associate professor had redesigned and taught during the first year of implementation; the associate professor who had designed and continued teaching the new Physics 315 Physics of Contemporary Challenges winter term; and the assistant professor, who had designed and continued teaching the new Physics 335 Techniques of Theoretical Mechanics spring term as well as one of the junior-level paradigms in physics courses.
The focus of the Paradigms 2.0 Committee meetings during winter term included brainstorming about emerging issues that needed to be addressed, discussing possible refinements of the order of the paradigms in physics courses, consulting faculty who would be affected by such refinements, convening a focus group of students, coming to agreement on options to propose for refining the order of the paradigms in physics courses as well as planning for discussing these options in the Upper Division Curriculum Committee meetings and presenting them at a regular faculty meeting for a vote.
Brainstorming about emerging issues.
The Paradigms 2.0 Committee members began by brainstorming about emerging issues that needed to be addressed. These included what teaching assignments to recommend to the head of the department for the coming academic year, whether the new order for the paradigms in physics courses was working well enough or should be modified in some way, how to help faculty new to teaching the paradigms in physics courses both in terms of using more active engagement strategies and in understanding the goals of and connections among paradigms in physics courses, what the expectations should be for the person shadowing and for the person being shadowed while teaching a paradigms in physics course, what students entering a particular course should already know, how to divide up the mathematics the faculty member teaching a paradigms in physics course should teach and the math that the Math Bits person teaches, what progress was being made in developing a new upper level lab and in offering specialty courses, how to ease spring of the junior year to give students time to start their research, what they needed to know in order to be able to do that, and especially how to meet the needs of the two distinct populations of students enrolled in the two new sophomore courses.
Discussing possible refinements in the order of the paradigms in physics courses.
The second meeting of the Paradigms 2.0 Committee during winter term focused primarily on considering various refinements in the order of the courses offered, including the two new sophomore courses, Physics 315, Physics of Contemporary Challenges, currently being taught winter term, and Physics 335, Techniques of Theoretical Mechanics, currently being taught spring term of the sophomore year. What changes could be made to bring the backgrounds of the on-campus physics majors and transfer students closer together?
One suggestion was to move both of the two new courses to fall term of the junior year. This would allow transfer students who completed the calculus-level introductory physics course (Physics 211, 212, 213) at a community college and some students who completed the introductory physics course on the OSU campus to take the same courses at the same time with roughly the same level of preparation.
To address the large number of students in Physics 315, another section could be offered spring term for those students starting the three-term introductory physics course on the OSU campus during spring of their freshman year, which was the standard track for physics majors. This refinement would return the path for on-track physics majors to enrolling in the spring of their sophomore year in a course that teaches aspects of modern physics. Instead of a historical narrative of 20th century physics characteristic of the eliminated modern physics course, however, Physics 315 would include similar content in a forward-looking narrative of addressing major contemporary challenges such as climate change and renewable energy.
The fall section of Physics 315 and Physics 335 both could move to a series of 5-week daily paradigms in physics formats but that seemed problematic in terms of teaching Physics 315 in a traditional 10-week format in spring and in a 5-week format in the fall. Therefore the suggestion was to offer Physics 315 in the traditional format, for one hour Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and to offer Physics 335 for two hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays, both for ten weeks in the fall. This would maintain the six credits in the paradigms in physics “timeslot” although configured for two courses taught separately throughout the ten-week term instead of a series of two courses each taught daily for five weeks each. An advantage of this unusual structure was that the time slots available for enrolling in other courses in other departments would not change. Fortunately, the faculty member teaching Physics 335 preferred the two weekly two-hour sessions because this would provide additional time for teaching with active engagement strategies [(4 hours/week*10 weeks = 40 hours) versus (3 hours/week*10 weeks) = 30 hours)].
Offering both Physics 315 and 335 during fall term, however, would require shifting all the paradigms in physics courses by one term. That shift introduced constraints such as the timing for topics needed to be taught before students heading to graduate school take the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) in fall of their senior year. Other constraints prompted some refinements based on which topics needed to be taught before other topics. The implications of the various possible orders were complex and not resolved by the end of this meeting.
Consulting faculty who would be affected by the refinements under consideration.
The third meeting of the Paradigms 2.0 Committee included inviting other faculty members currently teaching the junior-level paradigms in physics courses to offer their insights and opinions about the various versions of the proposed refinements in the order of the paradigms in physics courses. This was time consuming but helpful in learning about possible constraints and in thinking through the implications of each contemplated modification.
The conversation began by sharing with each faculty member a summary of the issues prompting the need for re-ordering the paradigms in physics courses: the difficulty in teaching two very different populations of students in the new sophomore courses although these courses were otherwise successful; the shift of one paradigms in physics course, Physics 422, from fall to spring, which had led to loss of several ways in which this course had introduced the students to some useful techniques; and questions involving timing, cohort building, specialty courses, and coordinating with graduate courses.
One faculty visitor was concerned about how the proposed new order of courses would be perceived by faculty at other institutions who would be making decisions about our seniors applying to graduate school, given how our course titles and content structure already differ from the traditional physics curriculum. Another issue was how the number, sequence, and complexity of labs and their write-ups would be affected. This faculty member stated explicitly being “not especially in favor but not opposed” and suggested making a minimal change, then studying what was happening for another year before making such major changes.
Another visitor, chair of the graduate curriculum committee, was consulted for potential time conflicts for students heading to graduate school; these students might be enrolling as seniors in first year graduate courses now recommended in place of the eliminated mechanics and math methods capstone courses. The latter courses had been eliminated from the major because they seemed unnecessary for physics majors heading toward other fields such as high school teaching, law, medicine, finance, or industry.
Two other faculty members, relatively new to teaching in the paradigms in physics program, listened to the explanations for making various changes and did not offer many objections. One stated that the fall capstone course in electricity and magnetism seemed to be very difficult for students and should not be combined with two junior-level paradigms courses pushed to fall term senior year by moving Physics 315 and 335 to fall term junior year.
Coming to agreement and planning next steps.
During the fourth meeting of the winter term, the Paradigm 2.0 Committee members finalized their rationale for proposing refinements of the order of the junior level paradigms in physics courses. They also finalized the options they were proposing for making changes in the order of the paradigms in physics courses: a minimal change, a medium change, and a large change.