PHYS 100 and Core courses at Boise State
by Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr.
22 Nov '99
A grade of at least a "C" enables the four credits earned in PHYS 100 to count toward the Core Requirement in Area III for a degree at Boise State. As such the course is expected to be consistent with the general philosophy and goals of the Core and to meet some of the specific objectives set out for courses in the Core program. The following is a description of those objectives and goals of the Core program which PHYS 100 meets.
Philosophy of Boise State Core
The core curriculum at Boise State University is designed to provide undergraduate students with a coherent experience leading to the acquisition of knowledge and the ability to engage intellectually with ideas so that they will be able to continue independent learning and analysis of information over the course of their lives. Moreover, they will confront the ideas, events and issues necessary to a sense of community and an appreciation of the pluralistic nature of our society.
Goals For The Core Experience
As a general principle, courses in Core are designed to stimulate critical and analytical reasoning, effective communication, tolerance, aesthetic and ethical understanding, and a sense of individual, social and environmental welfare. By taking a combination of Core courses students will participate in a learning environment designed to further the following specific educational goals:
1. Courses in Core provide continual opportunities for students to refine those skills essential to sound communication and reasoning in a variety of contexts. The capacity for effective and constructive communication is fundamental and is developed and expanded by repeated application throughout the core.
2. Courses in Core foster the development of habits of independent analytic inquiry. They also encourage the formulation and articulation of the reasons, parameters and consequences of choice, with the aim of increasing students’ understanding of the significance of their choices for themselves and others.
The design of PHYS 100 fits this philosophy and achieves these goals. The descriptions of the course contained in the document
PHYS 100 Course Philosophy, what the course is about and what it is not about and the descriptions of the roles of lab and discussion should make this clear.There are, in addition, specific criteria for Core courses in the statement of philosophy and goals for Boise State University's Core. It is indicated that Core courses are expected to "incorporate these criteria, where appropriate". The particular criteria that PHYS 100 can reasonably be said to meet are the following. The numbering scheme is from the document describing the Boise State University Core. The course is designed so that it is almost impossible to be successful without doing the things described.
Content Area Criteria:
3.0 Natural and Applied Sciences: Courses in the Natural and Applied Sciences will provide students the opportunity:
3.1 To understand basic scientific concepts…
PHYS 100 is not a survey of all possible concepts related to the subject of physics, but we will deal in some depth with a few significant phenomena treated in physics. A single semester is simply too short a time period to allow any sort of survey and to even begin accomplish the goals of Core. It is important to note that much of both could have already been accomplished by the time a student is ready to enter college, but our educational system is not geared to accomplish these goals.
3.4 To participate directly in the scientific process and thereby gain an appreciation of the scientific method.
As was indicated in the document PHYS 100 Course Philosophy in the section WHAT THIS COURSE IS ABOUT PHYS 100 is an exercise in "doing" science all semester long. To actually participate and be successful in PHYS 100 is to participate in the process of science.
General Intellectual Criteria: Courses in the Core will provide students the opportunity to enhance the following skills:
4.0 Critical and Analytical Reasoning
4.1 To think critically…
You will have to engage in critical thinking in order to understand the ideas of others, formulate and express your own ideas and to assess any of the ideas as candidates for use in the explanatory models (or stories) we generate about the phenomena we study.
4.2 To use evidence to construct arguments and test conclusions.
We will be constructing logical arguments in support of our ideas to explain the phenomena. We will test our explanations against the phenomena they are intended to explain.
4.3 To examine the question of truth and to investigate the interrelationship of fact and value judgment.
Few courses abandon the conventional notion of the nature of knowledge as completely as we are attempting in PHYS 100. Through participation in this course you will be in a position to examine "the question of truth" from a different perspective. The issue of the nature of "fact" and its interrelationship with "value judgement" are inevitably aspects of this examination. Many students in the past have found this the most challenging feature of PHYS 100. In normal science classes both at Boise State and in your previous schooling such considerations are essentially non-existent because they present science as given Truth, or as close as we can presently come to it.
4.4 To read and understand a variety of materials both literally and conceptually.
Although there will be occasions during which you will be reading things, much of the PHYS 100 class is not focused on reading so much as spoken verbal communication. You will have the opportunity to "hear" a variety of ideas expressed to you by your classmates for both literal and conceptual understanding. Certainly conceptual issues, issues of meaning, will be a focus of attention in this course.
4.5 To understand the context within which ideas develop.
Since the major agenda in PHYS 100 is to construct our own explanatory models of the phenomena we will be developing our own ideas. What better way to understand the context in which ideas develop than to directly experience the process of developing ideas? The bases for conviction about the models and definitions we develop for ourselves in this course are exactly the same as those of the scientists.
5.0 Effective Communication
5.1 To demonstrate facility with language and other symbolic systems in interpersonal communication
Comments in the document PHYS 100 Course Philosophy in the section titled: A DIFFERENT FUNCTION FOR DISCUSSION IN THIS COURSE, should make it clear that this will be a part of your experience in PHYS 100. While we will do little formal mathematics (one of the chief symbol systems used by professional scientists) we will engage heavily in the use of standard diagrammatic symbols such as lines for light rays and graphs of motion and forces depending on which units we study during the semester.
5.2 To develop and demonstrate advanced traditional and technological literacy skills
During the semester you might make use of computers to generate graphs of motion and forces, for example. If so, then without ever actually constructing a graph yourself, by the end of the semester you will be able to read, interpret, and discuss motion on the basis of graphs of that motion. Amazingly enough it is possible for you to do this in a manner, if not superior to at least as well as, the typical capabilities of students who have taken a calculus-based physics course. Many PHYS 100 students have done this in the past. Yet as has been indicated you will do almost no formal mathematics in this course.
5.3 To write clearly and correctly; and to speak and listen effectively.
Again, it should be clear from the description of the course on previous pages that this will be a part of your daily work in PHYS 100. Since the "text" for this course is the conversation of the course, the ideas brought up and examined by the class, writing (for your own personal record of the ideas), speaking (to express your ideas or to test your understanding of the ideas of another), and listening (to try to understand the ideas of another) will be necessary activities in PHYS 100.
6.0 Tolerance
6.1 To investigate and appreciate pluralistic representations of human knowledge and experience.
You will frequently be surprised at the different ways your classmates think about the phenomena and interpret each other’s explanations of the phenomena. You will have the opportunity to use these differences constructively. You will find that rejecting these ideas out of hand is not a formula for success in the course. The contrast between the traditional notion of Truth used in most other courses and that used in PHYS 100 is a major example of the alternative available to you in the course.
6.2 To appreciate the variety of ways in which we gain knowledge and apply it to enhance our understanding of the universe, society and ourselves.
You have already experienced one "way" of "gaining knowledge" in previous science classes, i.e., being given scientific knowledge as Truth or our closest approximation to it. In PHYS 100 you will experience another major "way" of "gaining knowledge" which is to co-construct it yourselves with each other.
6.3 To recognize the diversity of potential interpretations arising from information.
Again, you will be amazed at the range and variety of the different explanations your classmates come up with when they first experience some of the surprises we will see with the phenomena. They have been doing this all the time, but in standard lecture courses which do not focus on the ideas of the students you have not had an opportunity to notice this fact. This is borne out in the readings provided at the end of each unit. You will have many such opportunities in PHYS 100, if you pay attention.
7.0 Ethical Considerations
7.3 To cultivate intellectual honesty.
Since we will be constructing shared explanations of phenomena which we all have the opportunity to experience in lab, there will be little or no space for intellectual dishonesty. Everyone will have access to the same raw data. The discussion of ideas is an open forum and anyone is free to question any idea. There will be no quarter in which to hide from the intellectual scrutiny of the class as a community of learners. In the long run, intellectual honesty will have to be practiced by each class member in order to be taken seriously by others in class. Of course, the burden here is as much in the hands of the listener as in those of the proposer of any idea. If the listener does not intellectually scrutinize what is proposed, then anything can be proposed.
8.0 Social and Environmental Responsibility
8.3 To recognize the needs, obligations, rights and responsibilities of self and others, especially as these may be influenced by race, class gender, ethnic, religious, social, economic or ideological considerations.
We are interested in generating an experience for you which involves sharing and discussing ideas with the goal of reaching an explanation which can be agreed upon in some way by all of the class. In the give-and-take of these discussions, although they are not intended to turn out this way, it sometimes happens that "the needs, obligations, rights and responsibilities" of some are temporarily ignored by others. This gives rise to discussions of such issues in class and negotiations concerning methods of resolving the problem and conducting ourselves in such a way as to better understand and maintain an appropriate recognition of these needs, obligations, rights, and responsibilities we have to each other and ourselves. Because the discussions in this course need to be different than in the typical course as indicated the document PHYS 100 Course Philosophy in the section titled: A Different Function for Discussion in This Course, conducting ourselves with tolerance of all ideas is a generally unpracticed skill. Class discussion will at some point turn to "the needs, obligations, rights and responsibilities" we have to each other in the general area of our practice of tolerance of each other’s ideas.