I have a dilemma.
I teach a two-semester introductory calculus-based physics course at my university. While I usually have a few first-year physics majors among the 40-80 students in my classes, most are in other math-intensive STEM majors like engineering, meteorology, chemistry and computer science.
The faculty in engineering, in particular, has expectations about how well students will understand physics concepts that are foundational in their discipline when they finish my class. So lowering the bar on physics understanding in my course is not an option. Nor is changing the content. Nor is extending the sequence into a three-semester sequence – engineering majors already rack up well more than the standard 120 credit hours to earn their bachelors’ degrees.
However, achieving the level of understanding that the engineering and physics faculty expect students to have when they finish my course requires most students to have had a previous physics course to lay the groundwork – most commonly a good high school physics class. There are always exceptions. Every year I have a few students who didn’t take physics in high school who excel in my course. But most who skipped high school physics end up well down on the grade scale. On the average, there is a full letter grade difference between students who took physics in high school and those who didn’t.
Unfortunately, about one-third of the students who take my course have not had a high school physics class. That number will likely grow. The number of students taking physics in Florida’s public high schools dropped 20% from the Fall of 2014 to the Fall of 2020. In the Fall of 2020, one out of six large (greater than 1,000 students) public high schools in Florida didn’t teach physics. These problems existed before the pandemic and have continued to worsen during the pandemic.
Many of the students who arrive in my class underprepared – the word I use for not having a high school physics class – come from disadvantaged backgrounds. But a surprising number of them are affluent and attended high schools where they had access to physics courses but decided for a variety of reasons not to take one.
So what should I do about underprepared students? I raised this question on Twitter this past week and received a few suggestions. I pointed out that there are several public colleges and universities in Florida (but not mine) that require students who have not had a high school physics class to take an additional course before starting the calculus-based introductory sequence. This likely extends the amount of time-to-degree for an engineering major by a semester. Several of the participants in the Twitter discussion argued that it is unfair that many of the students who would be required to take the additional semester course are low income students who can least afford to do so.
One recommendation that came in via Twitter was for a boot camp that would not be a formal course but which would be taken before the standard physics sequence. There is such a program at my university for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, but it is limited to one week. I declined to participate when I was given the chance because I didn’t think a week was enough to help a student build understanding about anything, much less replace an entire high school physics class. A colleague who led this mini-boot camp one year despaired afterward that it had not done any good – in part because only a few students took advantage of it.
Of course, I’ve faced this dilemma for decades here at my university. We do NOT require students without high school physics to take an additional course. Instead, they are placed in the first-semester calculus-based course with the better prepared students. Here is what I’m doing to address this issue:
I am using evidence-based active learning practices in my teaching. I teach in a SCALE-UP classroom that follows the design created at North Carolina State University. (This program is called the Studio Physics Program at my university.) Students work in collaborative groups of three, and we try to foster conversations among students and between students and instructors. We generally have five instructors in a 70-student class – perhaps the best student-instructor ratio the students have seen since elementary school. I monitor the groups for signs that individual students are being left out of discussions and make changes when I see this happening. Of course, my efforts in this regard are much less than perfect. A study based on observations made in my class a few years ago showed that conversations among students at one of the nine-seat tables in my classroom reflected gender bias on the part of the male students, even though women were the majority of students at the table. And because nearly all of the students in my class are majoring in math-intensive STEM fields, only 20-30% of the students in my course are women. Even fewer are Black since only 7% of the engineering graduates from Florida’s public universities are Black. However, our Studio Physics classes give underprepared students the best possible opportunity to learn and succeed – certainly much better than in traditional lecture classes. By monitoring the discussions I can address at least a few of the bias issues.
I am encouraging parents of high school students to enroll their students in chemistry and physics classes. The American Society for Engineering Education recommends that high school students who might choose to major in engineering in college take chemistry, physics, precalculus and (if possible) calculus in high school. Furthermore, university faculty in fields like computer science, biology, architecture, chemistry and meteorology recommend taking physics in high school. I deliver that message – especially to parents of high school students – whenever I can. During the last few months, I’ve talked with parents of students in the Orange County Public Schools Calculus Project at about a dozen schools. The Calculus Project recruits students from disadvantaged backgrounds into middle school algebra classes and provides a tremendous amount of support in the form of summer boot camps and tutoring after school and on Saturdays. I have helped establish the Future Physicists of Florida induction ceremonies, which each year (before the pandemic) recognized hundreds of middle school students for interest in math and science. I have worked on the Nuclear Medicine and Science Camps for middle and high school students in Bay County in the Florida Panhandle, and we are beginning a Nuclear Medicine and Science Academy at that district’s Deane Bozeman School. I use all of these opportunities to talk with students and parents about high school course-taking.
It’s also worth noting that there are a few Florida public high schools that buck the socioeconomic trend and recruit many students into physics classes. One is Godby High School right here in Tallahassee. Another is Orange County’s Jones High School. Both schools have remarkable physics teachers. Godby’s teacher and the success she has with her students were recently the subject of a doctoral dissertation.
But finding ways to help students who arrive in our university physics classrooms underprepared isn’t easy. There is no sweeping solution that would be obvious if only we would “open our minds”. We must be willing to work with one student at a time and talk with one parent at a time. It is the only way forward.
Bridge to Tomorrow 