There is substantial evidence of a need to make computation an integral part of the undergraduate physics curriculum. This need is consistent with data from surveys in both the academy and the workplace, and has been reinforced by two years of exploratory efforts by a group of physics faculty for whom computation is a special interest. We have examined past and current efforts at reform and a variety of strategic, organizational, and institutional issues involved in any attempt to broadly transform existing practice. We propose a set of guidelines for development based on this past work and discuss our vision of computationally integrated physics.
and current practice than your original choice. For those of you new to integrative computing packages, our goal is to enable you to make an informed first choice.In this installment, we begin to examine how these tools serve the professional work of undergraduate education. Within this context, we'd like to raise several significant issues for those teaching undergraduates to be scientists and engineers. We point to some exemplary materials and offer our own paradigms for major educational uses, which provide a framework for discussing the packages and drawing some implications for those issues in a concluding installment. In subsequent issues, we'll explore how the tools serve scientific and engineering research and communication.
Undergraduate EducationWe begin with the premise that science and engineering undergraduates should have experience in using modern computational tools. Indeed, this is already an explicit criterion for engineering schools' curricula in the US as prescribed by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET; www.abet.org/criteria.html). In this article, we examine the extent to which these tool packages so qualify: What kinds of computational experiences with them are appropriate for undergraduate students?We're aware of the multiple goals that educational uses of computing technology must serve, as well as the challenge they present to a fair evaluation of computing software. Foremost in our minds as instructors experienced in the design of electronic instructional materials is the importance of appearance, simplicity, and user-interface functionality to the success of such materials. Yet, there are several types of user interfaces that connect users to different computing tasks according to different educational goals. This begs several questions: What are some major educational goals for science and engineering undergraduates? How are specific computing tasks related to those goals? How does each of the three productivity packages realize the required computations?Undergraduates have a variety of learning styles and abilities, and they must simultaneously master material while learning how to learn. Ease of use in the packages' user interfaces as well as their adaptability to the variety of interactive mechanisms used in educational applications are key issues. Keep in mind, however, that the way and degree to which these are important depends on who the students are as well as the goals of the applications.College and university instructors must be judicious in the type and intensity of development projects they undertake in creating educational materials, with respect to both the time and resources they dedicate. How well do these tool packages serve for materials-development work that faculty will likely perform alone? How efficient are they when fast response times are required for modifications? How expensive are they to purchase and, equally important, maintain?Our approach to this review series is to describe the functions, features, and other elements these pa...
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