John Gastineau asks about programs that take three semesters to complete
what is normally crammed into two freshman semesters.
UW-Whitewater has had a three-semester program of introductory physics for
many years. Like some others at private colleges in the Mid-West, our first
semester begins in the spring of the freshman year, giving students the
opportunity to take one semester of calculus prior to beginning this calculus-
based course. This also allows students to take one semester of chemistry
prior to beginning physics and to finish the second semester prior to entering
really "heavy" calc-based physics.
WHile not a fire-hose approach, it is still coverage-driven, an approach
which we anticipate modifying as the "traditionalists" retire and the "young
turks" take over. Concerns about properly preparing our students both for
"real" physics _and_ the GRE remain as we move more in the direction of
Workshop Physics.
Paul Rybski, Physics, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater