The Department of Physics is taking a new approach to its introductory courses, implementing a revised sequence for all engineers that will link topics in physics more closely to those in engineering and will spread the material over three semesters instead of two by Spring 2005.
Following the implementation of changes to the engineering sequence, the department will also change the sequences for physical sciences majors and pre-med students. Specific plans for these sequences are not yet final.
The first course of the new engineering sequence has been crafted by Associate Professor of Physics Joshua Socolar and physics lecturer Mary Creason and will run as a small pilot version next semester. At the same time, engineering students not participating in the pilot will enroll in the current introductory course.
"One of the issues that arises in introductory physics, and in survey courses in general, is that there's a large amount of material that could be covered but can't all be covered," said Harold Baranger, chair of the department. "The differences will be reflected not in the core materials but in the choices made about exactly what to cover and what emphasis to make for each sequence."
Accompanying the changes to the introductory courses are some changes to the department's infrastructure. Baranger said the post of director of introductory physics--formerly held by Professor Emeritus Lawrence Evans--was eliminated because the consolidation of the three sequences under one director tended to make the courses more similar than they should be.
"We realized that the three audiences which we're trying to address are really quite different and they have different needs, different materials and different ways in which they should be taught," Baranger said.
In charge of curricular changes is Associate Professor of Physics Ronen Plesser, the newly appointed associate chair for teaching. Baranger created the post because he felt he did not have enough time to devote to curricular and other teaching matters.
Socolar said the changes to the introductory physics course for engineers include increased relevance to the rest of the engineering curriculum, incorporation of MATLAB into homework and lab exercises, and more in-depth coverage over three instead of two semesters. Physics 51/52 will become Physics 61/62/63.
Socolar will be teaching the new course to one section of engineering students in the spring. Tod Laursen, associate professor and director of undergraduate studies in civil and environmental engineering in the Pratt School of Engineering, said there will be 24 participants in the pilot of Physics 61, chosen from Pratt freshmen who have expressed interest in participating.
The pilot will cover mechanics but not topics such as thermodynamics, fluids and sound waves. "There will be a little more depth on each of the topics as we spread things out over three semesters," Socolar said. He added that, in order to "make it clearer to engineering students how physics is relevant to the rest of the engineering curriculum," the material will be reorganized and refocused.
"We felt that in the old way of doing it, too many things were covered and the essential features of physics as a science were getting lost in a sea of formulas," Socolar said. "We had feedback that said students were having a hard time appreciating the essential connectedness of it all."
For example, he said, the pilot will start out with instruction on statics and will then move to dynamics, whereas instructors used to start with single particles and then move to systems of particles. "That distinction between statics and dynamics is commonly made in engineering but not so commonly in physics," Socolar said.
He added that the course will also focus more on simple mechanical systems "that have the flavor of engineering applications to them." The incorporation of MATLAB, a technical computing environment for high-performance numeric computation and visualization, into physics homework and lab exercises will also connect the course more closely with the engineering curriculum, Socolar said.
"Engineers learn MATLAB in their first year anyway, so we can make it useful in the introductory courses for engineers in a way that we can't for, say, biology majors," he said.
Creason, who has been working with Socolar on the lab component of the new physics course, said the incorporation of MATLAB will allow for a stronger computational component to the course. "Lab activities are going to be more closely correlated with what they're getting in the lecture and recitation components of the class," she said. Following the pilot next semester, the physics department will adjust the course before administering it for the entire Pratt freshman class the following spring.
Also in Fall 2004, the department will run a pilot of Physics 62, which will focus on electricity and magnetism and will be taught by Associate Professor of Physics Stephen Teitsworth. Daniel Gauthier, Anne T. and Robert M. Bass associate professor of physics and associate professor of biomedical engineering of radiology, is working on the new Physics 63, which will be piloted in Spring 2005.
Changes to the pre-med sequence--currently Physics 53/54--and the physical sciences majors sequence--currently Physics 41/42--will be implemented after the changes to the engineering sequence. Baranger said the introductory physics sequence offered during the summer sessions has typically been the one intended for pre-med students. He noted that the department may need to reconsider its summer offerings as the three sequences diverge.
"We'll probably just offer one and try to figure out which one best meets the needs of students coming in the summer," he said.
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