SA exploring physics curriculum changes

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by Mike Castillo

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These ideas include holding seminars for the professors to improve teaching techniques, providing midterm questionnaires for students regarding the performance of the professors and increasing the number of sections offered per semester.

According to Hanszen College Senator and committee member Teddy Kapur, "many years of student complaints as well as stories of students changing majors as a result of Physics 101, 102, 125 and 126" led to the formation of this committee.

Mitch Hollberg, Will Rice College president and a committee member, said, "Course evaluations are less than stellar. ... There is an undercurrent of dissatisfaction all over campus."

Corcoran puzzled over the root of this dissatisfaction.

"If you look back at the course evaluations only five years ago, you see marks that don't look bad at all," Corcoran said. "The course today hasn't changed much, the teachers are the same and the material covered is the same. That leaves us wondering what the problem is."

One thing that Corcoran has noticed is that "the clientele may have changed." She notes that physics majors, who might have constituted a large part of the class at one time, now either take Physics 111 or place out entirely from the introductory courses. This leaves mostly nonmajors in a class that used to be comprised of students with strong physics backgrounds.

Hollberg said that another suggestion has been made to bring in teachers from other science departments "to gear the course more toward the students who are taking it."

Another common complaint of these classes is the number of students taking the courses. Physics 125 increased by 30 percent in 1995 and by 10 percent this year, according to Corcoran. The department is considering breaking the course into two sections, similar to Physics 101. Corcoran said she would like to see the classes split even further, though such a move may not be feasible.

Hollberg hopes the ideas will lead to introductory courses that will leave students "generally satisfied with the course."

Kapur sees these suggestions as ones that may make an immediate impact. The first set of questionnaires is scheduled to be given to students following the first midterm of the semester.

SA committee member Tara Miller sees the questionnaires as being more helpful than the evaluations done at the termination of the course.

"That method is retroactive, while this is more proactive," Miller said. Her hope is that faults can be noticed and improved early on in the course.

This item appeared in the News section of the October 4, 1996 issue.

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