Undergraduate Education: MinutuesW01

Undergraduate Education Committee
9 January 2001
San Diego
Unofficial Minutes

The meeting was called to order and after a few minutes of introduction we turned our attention to the current meeting.

The general consensus of the committee seemed to be that the meeting was great. The number of papers/attendance was very high, the talks were very interesting, and the exhibit show was more lively and more varied than in recent memory. There was a complaint that having all the committee meetings in one night limited attendance at the committee meetings and some of the work between committees, which occur when members of one committee attend anotheršs, was impaired. And several complained about not finding a schedule for the shuttle. But generally the committee stated the meeting was a success and proposed that another joint meeting with the AAS be pursued.

Juan Burciaga (who attended the Chairs Planning meeting when Ed Neuenschwander could not attend) reported that the Planning Committee believed that the 48 workshops scheduled for the Rochester meeting were too many and wanted the committees to prioritize the workshops and list those that could be delayed. The committee members began a spirited debate about what criteria should be used for setting priorities. Finally we concluded that we did not know enough of the Rochester workshops to prioritize them. If the Planning Committee still needed us to cull the list, Juan Burciaga would contact the workshop organizers for more information and to see if any could be delayed.

Ken Heller then expressed his concern that the work of the committee had focused too much on the details of the meeting and did not look at the larger issues of what kinds of sessions/ workshops we should be sponsoring. Our discussion led us into several topics which were on the minds of the members -- demos, TA training, assessment, ABET-like accreditation of the undergraduate curriculum.

Ken Heller stated that we should host a session on the effectiveness of demos -- what is an effective demo? what can we do to make the demos more effective? more engaging? After some discussion we were unable to come up with a list of names for the session and the idea was postponed. Juan Burciaga agreed to look into the matter further.

A certification process of the undergraduate curriculum also initiated a strong response. The committee members were almost unanimously opposed to the idea. We argued that the need of a physics majors at a small college, a research university, and a state school were so diverse that a simple check list would not be an adequate guarantee of a good physics education. But the committee agreed that a more complete discussion by the physics community on this issue was needed.

Another issue which came up at the Chairs Meeting was the possibility of changing the 2 annual meetings of the AAPT to a single meeting but encouraging regional meetings to grow in size and importance to make up the difference. members expressed concern that some of the sections would need to be restructured and possibly refinanced in order for them to host regional meetings of the needed size. In addition, the remaining national meeting would most likely experience considerable growth forcing us back to a 5-day, or maybe 6-day meeting.

But this initiated a separate discussion on the division of the physics community between the AAPT and the APS. The committee resolved to continue to seek ways to keep the lines between us and that of comparable organizations within the APS open whenever common topics develop.

The committee turned our attention to the Philadelphia meeting.

Alan van Heuveleen asked the committee to sponsor a session on Theory and Assessment of Conceptual Model Building. After a brief discussion the committee voted to sponsor his session. He also stated that he would like to have it co-sponsored by the PER committee. Juan Burciaga agreed to approach the PER chair about the possibility.

The committee turned its attention to another session on quicksand topics in intro physics -- topics which pose difficulties in explaining right at the intro level for students, faculty, and textbook authors. Some of these topics include -- conservation of energy, Gaussšs Law, elastic and inelastic collisions, extended objects, etc. Juan Burciaga agreed to organize the session leaving others of the committee (such as Ken Heller and Alan van Heuveleen) available to be invited speakers.

Ken Heller agreed to organize a session on PHYSTEK. Several members of the committee argued that this topic was a timely one for both the AAPT and APS communities and that we should invite the FED of the APS to join us in a jointly sponsoring this session. Ken Heller and Juan Burciaga agreed to look into the mechanism for a co-sponsored session further.

Ed Neuenschwander made a request that the committee continue to sponsor the session on SPS undergraduate research. The committee voted unanimously to continue to do so.