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Course Reflection: Physical Science
At the end of each semester, I like to write at least a little bit about each course. It’s sort of like a “dear diary” entry about what worked and what didn’t work. Honestly, I think this one of the most valuable things that faculty can do to improve their instructional methods. It’s too easy to just put away your stuff and move on to the next semester, but let’s not do that.
The Course
Normally, I would just write this review in google docs or something. But since I’m posting it online, I figured I should give some context. This course is Physical Science 101 (PHSC 101). It’s an introductory course for non-science majors. The intent is to cover some “physics” stuff and then the next course (PHSC 102) will focus more on matter and chemistry (but that’s flexible).
We designed the course a few years ago after looking at students taking the Earth Science sequence (which covers rocks, weather, and astronomy). We found that student’s understanding of the nature of science decreased after taking the course. Oh, that’s not good — especially since the whole point of taking the course is to help them understand science.
With the nature of science as our primary goal, I use Next GEN Physical Science and Everyday Thinking.
