Physics for Scientists and Engineers
In 1996 and 1997, under the guidance of Physics faculty member Bruce Birkett and the Physics 7 Committee, the Department instituted a new format for Physics 7A and 7B, required courses for all physical science and engineering majors. The traditional structure of the course did not provide optimal time or activities for most students to learn the copious material, through which they could make real sense of each topic.
In the new format, students still meet in lecture but also meet in groups of twenty-two with a single GSI (Graduate Student Instructor) for two sessions of two hours each week. Generally one of these sessions is laboratory-based, while the other is run as a workshop. Group work and active learning are emphasized throughout, based on a standardized curriculum: students work on problems, discuss concepts, or make measurements and link the results to the rest of the course material. Since the students are together for four hours each week, they quickly come to know one another and their GSI very well, and work cooperatively to develop a deep understanding of the material. Thanks to better overall coordination, the labs now neither lag behind or get ahead of lecture and homework activities, as they did in the past.
The benefits of the new format are many and varied. GSIs for the courses feel better prepared and therefore more helpful; their preparation time is more efficient. Students report greater satisfaction with the course and have formed informal study groups with members of their sections.
Faculty, students, and GSIs express overwhelming enthusiasm for the courses. Faculty indicate that students are doing better on exams, and students seem more involved in the course material. Perhaps even more important is the change in how students view the learning process itself: a greater awareness of what it means to learn well. A group of thirty physics students, in a letter supporting the nomination for the Educational Initiatives Award, summarizes their view of the success of the program: "We didn't just learn physics, but some more fundamental skillshow to break a problem into its essentials, how to see in a complex situation a more general principle, how to learn by teaching, how to formulate probing questions, and most of all, how to work together."