Section 3.5 Sorting the Colored Index Cards Collaboratively
By interviewing faculty members teaching upper-level courses, the committee members gradually assembled colorful sets of index cards that captured the main topics currently taught. Then they began to ponder what changes, if any, seemed desirable.
The committee had been meeting in the professor's lab space, which was used daily for many other purposes. They needed to find a quiet place to meet where they could lay out the cards on a large table and leave the cards undisturbed for several weeks. Fortunately a room awaiting remodeling was available, with several large tables and enough chairs for committee members and visitors.
The committee members spread out the cards for the nine paradigms courses on a large table, with a vertical line of cards for each course. Lively discussions ensued. As the committee members contemplated shifting individual topics from one course to another, they moved smaller sets of cards or sometimes just one card from one line to another. Some suggestions resulted in a reordering of the current paradigm courses, with entire lines of cards being shifted from one location to another on the table.
As shown in Figure II.3.2.1, for example, cards for two current courses (Ph 421 Oscillations taught in the fall, and Ph 424 One-dimensional Waves taught in the winter) had been moved together tentatively to form a combined course, Oscillations and Waves, represented by the white card with that title. The two columns of cards on the left and in the middle, representing this tentative combined course, included five red cards, representing mathematics to be taught (ordinary differential equations (ODE's) with constant coefficients, Fourier series and transforms), two blue cards representing topics in electricity and magnetism (LRC circuits, damped waves via a coax cable lab), two green cards, representing topics in classical mechanics (damped and driven harmonic oscillator, classical wave equation) and one green card turned sideways representing a possible but not yet agreed upon topic (nonlinear oscillators).
Topics for the current course, Physics 427, Periodic Systems, represented by the white card with that title near the top of the column on the right in Figure II.3.2.1, included topics from quantum mechanics listed on yellow cards (de Broglie wavelength, free particle motion, and Bloch waves) and topics from classical mechanics listed on green cards (coupled harmonic oscillator and periodic coupled oscillators).
Concurrent with these proposed revised courses would be a current computational course, Ph366, represented only by a white card with that title. At the time of this photo, Ph 461, the mathematics methods capstone course was still anticipated, taught concurrently with Periodic Systems spring term. Eventually Periodic Systems was moved to the second half of winter term, following Oscillations and Waves. The committee also later proposed eliminating the mathematics method capstone, Ph 461, and replacing it with “math bits” integrated into the paradigms in physics courses throughout the junior year (See Part VI: Changing Instruction, chapter 3.)
The committee members spent several weeks moving the cards around freely as they tried out various ideas. They agreed to keep the conversation open as they contemplated changes and to keep meeting and talking until a solution emerged for each identified issue.