A Study of the Development of the Paradigms in Physics Program

Using index cards to help align learning goals and course activities when redesigning one of the paradigms in physics courses.

New faculty teaching paradigms in physics courses were teaching content and using interactive pedagogical approaches in ways very different from what they themselves had experienced as learners. One new faculty member was responsible for restructuring a paradigms in physics course that was losing half of the content as previously taught and gaining half of the content from another paradigms in physics course. The PI assisted in this restructuring process by helping the faculty member think about how class activities could support students in learning particular goals:

One of the things (we) did…was to make learning goals for the course and put them on index cards and also put the activities of the course on index cards and we spent a lot of time card shuffling…to see the activities in terms of what were their learning goals.”

This was a limited version of the extensive card shuffling in which members of the Paradigms 2.0 committee had engaged in re-envisioning the entire paradigms in physics curriculum (see section 3.2 of Part V). Such mentoring enabled the PI to become more aware of experiences new faculty members were having while implementing the major changes that the faculty had approved in 2016.

Engaging all faculty in preparing for the university's upcoming report and site visit for renewing accreditation.

In response to the university's request that faculty in every department state explicit student learning outcomes for each degree program, the physics faculty had developed a formal set of such goals (see https://physics.oregonstate.edu/LearningOutcomesBS). For example:

Multiple representations of scientific information: Physics BS students will: demonstrate the ability to translate a physical description to a mathematical equation, and conversely, explain the physical meaning of the mathematics, represent key aspects of physics through graphs and diagrams, and use geometric arguments in problem-solving.

In addition, faculty were required to identify ways in which they were assessing such student learning outcomes in their courses. They were to provide examples not only of such assessments but also of actions they took to improve instruction based upon the evidence provided by student responses to such assessments. There was a strong push to educate the faculty about these new requirements and to enforce undertaking such measures within their courses. As the university's self-evaluation report stated:

Faculty with expertise in the subject develop and implement direct and indirect assessment methods at the course and program level. Assessment data are collected and analyzed by faculty, and this analysis is reflected on at curriculum committee meetings and full faculty meetings within the academic unit. Using data to inform curricular decisions, faculty facilitating the degree program recommend actions for revisions. Faculty report assessment and reflection activities in an annual program assessment report submitted to their college and the Office of Academic Programs and Assessment (APA) for undergraduate programs...

Oregon State University Year Seven Self-Evaluation Report to the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, February 2019 (p. 104) https://leadership.oregonstate.edu/sites/leadership.oregonstate.edu/files/2019_year_seven_self-evaluation_report_chapters_1-5.pdf

These new university-level assessment requirements added a more formal layer to the on-going assessment processes that the faculty had been enacting through lower division, upper division, and graduate curriculum meetings for decades. On a rotating basis, individual faculty members were assigned one of the student learning goals to assess, to articulate a way in which they would assess this goal via a homework or examination question, to collect and analyze student responses, and to document how they used that analysis to improve instruction. Although these assessment procedures were potentially useful and mirrored in many ways processes already in place, discussing and responding to these new formally required practices absorbed time, particularly during discussions in the Upper Division Curriculum Committee meetings, that otherwise would have been available for the department's already well-established collaborative processes described above.