Part VII 2017–2019: Monitoring and Refining Changes Underway
¶Studies of organizational decision-making indicate the importance of monitoring changes underway and embracing continuous change as part of an organization's culture (Beach [2]). Part VII discusses ways in which such monitoring and refinement occurred during and after implementation of the major changes in instruction that the faculty had approved in 2016.
The faculty participated in a variety of on-going and new monitoring processes. Many of the changes seemed to be going well. Members of the Paradigms 2.0 committee resumed meeting during the third year of implementation in order to share their impressions of the changes underway and to identify issues that might need to be addressed.
Although many adjustments could be made incrementally, resolving one issue seemed to require changes in the order of the upper-level courses. After developing several options, the members of the Paradigms 2.0 Committee consulted each faculty member who would be affected. They also discussed these options with the group of faculty participating in the Upper Division Curriculum Committee meetings as well as with a focus group of students currently enrolled in the upper-level courses.
Eventually members of the Paradigms 2.0 Committee articulated five options: making a minimal change, a medium change, and three options for making a large change in the order of the paradigms in physics courses. In preparing for a faculty vote, they first provided information about these five options in the first Upper Division Curriculum Committee meeting during spring term. Then they presented the five options formally for a vote during the first regular faculty meeting two days later. The faculty voted for one of the options for a large change in the order of the upper division courses, with the new schedule to be implemented during the next academic year.
Data sources for Part VII included audio recordings of Paradigms 2.0 committee meetings, upper division curriculum committee meetings and the faculty meeting during which the vote occurred, documents prepared for those meetings, and audio-recorded interviews with the four faculty members of the Paradigms 2.0 Committee. The lead author selected excerpts from these documents and recordings to illustrate the faculty's processes of monitoring and refining changes in instruction underway.
The guiding questions for this part of the study included:
- How has monitoring occurred as the approved changes in instruction were being implemented?
- What has gone well with these major changes to instruction?
- What have been some of the challenges in undertaking these changes?
- What refinements have been considered and adopted?
- What was learned during this monitoring and refining process?