Advances in computing technology continue both to bring marked changes in the skills needed for physics research and to present new opportunities for physics teaching. A two-fold problem faces many physics departments today: (1) how to give their undergraduate majors the computing tools and skills they will later need, such as proficiency in programming, using spreadsheets and computational packages like Mathematica, technical word processing, data acquisition and analysis, and networking; and (2) how to make room to learn these new tools and skills by rethinking the educational use of computing and the content of the courses required for majors. This project sets out a program to attack this problem to find a solution that can serve as a national model for other physics departments. With three NeXT workstations and release time provided by this grant, the entire faculty of the department will spend portions of a 15-month period working on a comprehensive and coherent integration of workstations and computing in the core physics curriculum, one that will not add to the number of courses required for the major nor increase student workload. Each of the faculty will focus on one or two courses they have recently taught and for which they will be responsible the following year. They will explore computer-based pedagogical opportunities for themselves, and devise ways to build on and extend the computing skills learned by students in prior courses. Faculty will also be assisted by students, visit other institutions, attend workshops and conferences on curricular computing, and bring consultants to campus. At the end of the project, the department will sponsor a one-week workshop to share what has been learned with colleagues at other institutions.
