Section 7.4 Accommodating student needs
Another new faculty member summarized the process of learning about what to teach in a course and of making changes as needed based on student responses. The process starts with receiving materials from previous instructors as well as talking with anyone with relevant experience, including past students:
I got this course from (experienced faculty member), and so (this experienced faculty member) basically gave me all the materials and (a new faculty member) taught it once, and also gave me materials...so obviously I talked to (the experienced faculty member), I talked to (the new faculty member), I talked to undergrads who took this course in previous years, I talked to my TA who already had experience...I talked to a lot of people.
Next one figures out what has to be taught and how to teach it:
Basically I looked at the structure of what has to be covered and then every class I teach, I always produce my materials, my notes, and my everything, but that gave me a good start because I saw what she had,
Then one teaches and realizes changes that are needed:
and then I tried to do it once and then I made some modifications because I thought the packing was too dense so I had to get rid of some parts here and there but then I added something else instead...
For example, one change needed was the timing of a laboratory that required more preparation:
This paradigm is packed and...I have to bring people up to speed somehow, so I have to make choices for the material to make sure that people know what they are doing, so I had to move the lab to Week Two, because initially this was given in Week One and this was a disaster, really three days is not enough to prepare people for the Thursday lab in the first week so I moved it to Tuesday of the next week and that helped
Such changes prompted other changes:
but nevertheless I had to get rid of one piece of (physics context), I had to give them less homework in (this context) and instead substitute (a different context) problem to prepare them for the lab...The lab is a keeper but it was just too big a jump and you have to prepare people for that and so a part of (physics context) went away, then a chunk was added in (another physics context) instead.
Such changes can accumulate over many years. This new faculty member was looking forward to the Paradigm 2.0 revision process, the intent to reexamine the paradigms in physics program at this time:
I think some paradigms are more in material dense than others and so I think a part of what has to happen with the 2.0 is to sharpen a little bit of the material so that some paradigms are more condensed and some others are more spread out...I want to make it better. I see problems and I don't necessarily have good solutions to the problems but I see ways where the material can be taught other than in these particular three weeks...
This perspective recognizes the need to re-examine a program that has been evolving over many years, particularly in ways that have increased the content knowledge and mathematical skills needed in some courses beyond what many of the students seem able to handle.