Continuous Improvement Plan
Department of Physics at CSU Chico
We will organize our plan for improvement and/or maintenance around those areas we
judge to be central to our mission. Woven into this will be comments from our external reviewer
and, where necessary, our response.
We affirm the following as central to the character of our department:
•
Maintain Collegiality
Collegiality among our faculty and staff is crucial to the life of our department, and is an
effective way to model our fourth student learning goal - graduates are aware of the
importance of honesty, curiosity, mutual respect, open-mindedness and service to others in
maintaining a vital community. It is also central to our taking collective responsibility for the
creation and delivery of effective instruction. Such collegiality has enabled us make
significant, positive changes to our RTP document, including incorporating the "Seven
Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education" into the RTP process itself.
The external reviewer (ER) recognizes our success in this area.
ʺCommendation 3 The Department should be commended for the collegiality of its faculty and staff and their focus on their mission as teachers. It is clear that this attitude has a significant impact on all students completing the physics major and the many students they serve from other science and engineering disciplines.ʺ We believe a key ingredient in maintaining collegiality is a shared sense of mission. As
we recruit new faculty and staff we will continue to make clear to them the character and
mission of our department. This helps to ensure that they will find a welcoming home in
which to pursue their professional and personal goals, and we will gain a valuable colleague
in our shared mission.
•
Recruit and Train Future High School Teachers
Our growing General Option has been successful in increasing our output of high school
physics/physical science teachers. The great need for such teachers will only increase in the
coming years. We can provide a valuable service to the people of the California by training
and supporting such teachers.
The external reviewer (ER) recognizes our commitment in this area.
ʺThe Department should be commended for their commitment to the preparation of future teachers of physical science in middle and high school.ʺ
This is an area in which we plan to continue to improve. Several of the ER's
recommendations dovetail with our plans: increased professional development opportunities
for General Physics majors, increased interactions of our technical staff with GP majors,
increased interactions of faculty and staff with in-service science teachers, and combining
efforts with those of the Dept. of Geological and Environmental Sciences. We hope to hire a
new faculty member whose PhD expertise is in the training of high school physics/physical
science teachers.
•
Expand Role in GE and Liberal Studies Science
The Department of Physics has, until recently, played a small but important role in Area
B GE and the Liberal Studies major. Our conceptual physics course (Phys 100) met several
student needs: a) served as a GE course for those students interested in building an
understanding of the fundamental laws and processes in the physical universe; b) fulfilled a
requirement in the Science Area of Concentration for Liberal Studies majors; c) served as an
introduction for more advanced courses required in all science and engineering majors. The
budgetary cut-backs that arose several years ago resulted in us no longer being able to offer
this course. We are currently restructuring this course so that it not only gives students an
overview of conceptual physics, but also provides increased interdisciplinary material on the
nature of Earth's physical dynamics. Our goal is to be able to offer this course by S08 or F08.
As pointed out by our external reviewer, our focus on effective pedagogy for student
learning makes us a natural source of instruction in the science component of the Liberal
Studies program. Providing future elementary school teachers with a strong base in the
physical science is typically (in the CSU system) the responsibility of the Department of
Physics. At CSU Chico this role has historically been the responsibility of the Department of
Geological and Environmental Sciences. For this reason, it is a delicate issue for our
department to expand our role in this area. The College of Natural Science is currently
seeking to hire five new faculty in science education, and we believe our role might well
expand under this new envisioning of science education. We stand ready to participate in
improving student learning in Liberal Studies in the manner deemed most effective by our
college.
•
Maintain our Expertise in Experimental Optics
Our small size of our department means that we need to focus our efforts in a few areas.
Under the energetic leadership and great skill of Professor Cheuk-kin Chau experimental
optics has been a field that has served well physics, engineering and chemistry majors. The
College of Natural Science 2005-2006 Distinguished Alumnus, Dr. James Millerd, is a
graduate of this program. Our Advisory Board in Fall 2005 reaffirmed the central importance
of maintaining expertise in experimental optics. In Fall 2005 Prof. Chau entered the FERP
program. We must hire someone whose PhD expertise is in this area, otherwise this program
will whither.
The ER agrees.
ʺRecommendation 11 Based on my judgment and brief evaluation of the situation, I would rank as the number one resource priority for the Department the hiring of a new faculty member with a strong experimental background in optics. This hire is necessary to ensure that the transition of knowledge and use of the very complex optics facility from Dr. Chau, a recent retiree into the FERP program, to the new hire is done over several years while Dr. Chau is still on campus.ʺ
•
Nurture Our Society of Physics Students Chapter
As documented in this report, our SPS chapter is nationally-recognized and truly
outstanding. It serves to deepen student engagement in our program, deepen student-faculty
interactions, support student research efforts, provide outreach to the community, and
enhance student leadership skills. It is quite important that our program continue its support
for this organization.
The ER's discussion with our majors led him to the following reflection.
ʺThe program’s extra‐curricular activities clearly have all the physics majors engaged in the work of the Department. This is especially true for the student’s work through the Society of Physics Students. The students take on the responsibility of running a very successful tutoring center and many of the Department’s outreach programs. The students testify that it is this involvement that has attracted them to major in physics and makes their education so meaningful.ʺ One way we have begun to increase faculty interaction with SPS is through the tutoring
center staffed by SPS members. Several of our faculty hold one or two office hours per week
in the tutoring center. This obviously benefits the students being tutored, but just as
importantly it engenders increased interaction between our majors and faculty members. We
will continue to promote the growth of such collaborative tutoring opportunities.
•
Sustain Individualized Instruction
Fiscal pressures are moving CSU Chico toward ever increasing class sizes and ever
decreasing student-faculty contact. We firmly believe that such trends run counter to the
practices that are needed to fulfill our mission. Establishing personalized mentor
relationships with our students is essential to fulfilling our mission, as well as being a
distinctive characteristic of our program. We will strive to maintain these relationships in the
face of increased industrialization and depersonalization in higher education.
The ER believes this characteristic is one of the ways our department is distinctive.
ʺIn my judgment what makes the Chico program special is the one‐on‐one attention their students get from faculty. The one thing that the 12 physics majors I talked to said over and over was that instruction both formally in the classroom and informally outside of class was a discussion with faculty about the physics and they had to hold their own or go off and figure it out and then come back with a question. The Chico Physics Department obviously provides a great environment in which to learn.ʺ
We hasten to add that we strive to give this type of attention to all of our students.
•
Work with AURA to Improve Assessment
We currently engage in programmatic and course assessment, and act on those
assessments. This self study has documented several examples of both assessments and
actions taken. However, we can increase the amount, and perhaps the quality, of our
assessments. The All University Responsibility for Assessment Committee (AURA) has been
established to facilitate assessment effectiveness. We pledge to work with AURA to improve
our assessment.
The ER judges our efforts on assessment to be worthy of commendation.
ʺThe Department should be commended for their commitment to learning and continuous improvement in the effectiveness and quality of their programs and ultimately the achievements of their students. The Department already has in place a number of ways that they determine how well they are doing in attaining their program goals and have used this information to make changes in order to improve their effectiveness.ʺ
He also judges that assessment of learning objectives is an area where improvement is
warranted.
ʺThe Department needs to articulate with both faculty and students the level of achievement of a number of their learning objectives by developing better performance indicators and collecting better data which measure the level of achievement in each. Some examples of learning objectives that need articulation include: writing in the discipline, oral presentation skills, computational skills, lab skills, and service.ʺ We have just completed (4/06) our first assessment report to AURA on the SLO 1.1:
"Graduates understand and can proficiently apply Newton's Laws of Motion." The results
were quite positive, with our students scoring well above average on a nationally recognized
assessment tool. As indicated by our ER we are also devoting some effort to improve our
assessment of writing in the discipline. Since writing typically occurs in a lab-based course,
our recent conversion (S06) of one of our upper-division courses (PHYS 300B) to include a
lab component will increase the amount of writing our students engage in, as well as increase
our opportunity for writing assessment.
We have created a time-line matrix for the assessment of our student learning objectives
(ATSLOM) that can be found here: Assessment Timeline for SLOs.doc . The diverse nature
of the SLOs requires the use of a range of assessment techniques. Determining what specific
assessment tools are most effective for each SLO will be done when that SLO is under
scrutiny. However, several general aspects of the assessment can be delineated. We will
assess the Goal 1 SLOs using both nationally normed multiple-choice questionnaires, these
typically investigate conceptual understanding, and questions drawn from examinations,
these typically require both conceptual and computational understanding. Goal 2 and 3 SLOs
will mostly be assessed from submitted student work, though some observation of student
behavior (SLO 2.2) may be required. Goal 4 SLOs are attitudinal in nature, so we will use a
combination of surveys and alumni interactions to assess whether these values are being
incorporated into our students' lives.
We will attempt to measure, whenever possible, the progression of the student toward
mastery of the SLOs during their career at CSU Chico.
•
Promote Professional Development Aligned with Mission
We will continue to promote the professional development of our faculty and staff, as
well as placing special value on professional development which aligns closely and directly
with our mission. We will continue to encourage faculty to participate in activities sponsored
by the American Association of Physics Teachers.
The ER judges our efforts to align professional development with mission to be
successful.
ʺ The faculty should be commended for their professional activity involved with the mission of the Department in the area of undergraduate teaching and learning. ʺ He also believes that we should pursue more external funding as part of our professional
development.
" The Department has had some success with external funding but needs to pursue grant money as part of their professional activity. There are excellent grant opportunities to support the current program development projects, i) to grow the General Physics Program and ii) for the Applied Physics Program to develop and improve physics instruction in several undergraduate laboratories.ʺ Our most recent tenure-track hire in Physics Education Research has been quite
successful in obtaining external funds. As stated above we are currently seeking two tenure
track hires with expertise in high school Physics/Physical Science teacher training and in
Experimental Optics. We believe these hires will help our efforts in the areas mentioned
above by the ER.
We also wish to point out what we view as the double-edged sword of externally funded
research. Most faculty who engage in such activities need release time to be successful. This
has been true of our faculty member who has obtained significant external funding. The
standard operating procedure is to hire a temporary lecturer, at a lesser salary, to "cover" the
classes the tenure-track faculty member no longer teaches. But since a central part of our
mission is the instruction of students, the absence of this faculty member from classes is
clearly not benefiting the students in those classes. We have no solution for this problem, but
we do believe the dilemma is often overlooked.
•
Maintain Strong Connections with Alumni
Our alumni provide valuable input to and assessment of our program. Alumni also help
provide an historical perspective to our department, which can be quite valuable when daily
deadlines obscure such a view. We will continue to strengthen these bonds with our alumni.
Our next Advisory Board Meeting in Spring 2006 will focus on a longer-term vision for our
alumni development, as well as developing a more effective way to reach out to alumni. We
will be working closely with the Leslie Schibsted, the CNS development officer.