Educational transformation in upper-division physics: The Science Education Initiative model, outcomes, and lessons learned

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Upper Division Physics Courses.] In response to the need for a scalable, institutionally supported model of educational change, the Science Education Initiative (SEI) was created as an experiment in transforming course materials and faculty practices at two institutions—University of Colorado Boulder (CU) and University of British Columbia. We find that this departmentally focused model of change, which includes an explicit focus on course transformation as supported by a discipline-based postdoctoral education specialist, was generally effective in impacting courses and faculty across the institution. In CU’s Department of Physics, the SEI effort focused primarily on upper-division courses, creating high-quality course materials, approaches, and assessments, and demonstrating an impact on student learning. We argue that the SEI implementation in the CU Physics Department, as compared to that in other departments, achieved more extensive impacts on specific course materials, and high-quality assessments, due to guidance by the physics education research group—but with more limited impact on the departmental faculty as a whole. We review the process and progress of the SEI Physics at CU and reflect on lessons learned in the CU Physics Department in particular. These results are useful in considering both institutional and faculty-led models of change and course transformation.

Figure 1

The SEI model and its intended impacts. Partnership between several players—driven by science teaching fellows (STFs) within departments—was aimed at both course transformation and faculty change. The strength of interactions between players is indicated by the weight of the connecting arrow. Course transformation was the explicit focus of the program; faculty development was equally important as a program goal, but implicit in the model.

Figure 2

The SEI course transformation philosophy.

Figure 3

Students enrolled in transformed courses in the Physics Department, as a percent of total enrollment. “Student enrollment” in a particular course is calculated as the total annual student enrollment in that course, averaged across academic year 2012 and 2013. “Percent of student enrollment” is then calculated by dividing the total student enrollment in transformed courses by the total student enrollment across all courses in the department [(a), first bar], student enrollment in courses for majors [(a), second and third bars], or student enrollment in upper-division majors courses (b). “Majors courses” are either a required or elective course for the physics major, and “upper division” is defined as a course required for the major that is beyond the 1000 level. Because some students are enrolled in more than one course at a time, “student enrollment” is not a count of individual students.

Figure 4

Average number of course changes in the three case-study departments, with “PHYS-UD” reported as an average across upper-division courses only. “Impact” is the total number of changes cataloged through interviews (see Sec. 5a). Course impact has a maximum of 14.

Figure 5

Fidelity scores in the four transformed courses, over time, representing the total number of instructional changes included each semester. The first semester represents course development. Because of some missing data, not every instructional instance is represented—essentially anonymizing this data and so obscuring the identity of instructors. The first semester without STF support is indicated with a circle, and instruction by the developer is indicated with a yellow star. Course 4 has had continued postdoctoral support.

Figure 6

Histogram of average course score on the CUE demonstrating improved performance for courses using CU’s transformed materials (11 courses, 3 institutions, $N=329$ students) relative to courses using only traditional lecture (10 courses, 5 institutions, $N=303$ students) across seven institutions.

Figure 7

Average number of faculty changes in the three case-study departments, with “PHYS-UD” reported as an average across faculty teaching upper-division courses only. “Impact” is the total number of changes cataloged through interviews (see Sec. 5a). Faculty impact has a maximum of 9.