I have been teaching a two-semester calculus-based course for a few years
at Syracuse University, populated primarily by biology and chemistry
majors. It has two 80 minute lectures per week, plus two one-hour
recitations per week. Each course is three credits. There is a mandatory
one-credit lab, that is a separate course, and is a corequisite. The first
semester of calculus is co-requisite to the first physics course, and a
second semester of calculus is co-requisite to the second course.
It's not easy to say how well it works. The students are very serious
(much more so than the engineering majors who take the same course
phase-shifted by a semester from the the course I'm teaching). I emphasize
at the outset that the reason to study physics is not to help them with
their careers (it won't), but because the subject matter is a great
accomplishment of the human mind.
There is some resentment of the courses being required by these
predominately pre-med students. ("I want to be a veterinarian. Why do I
have to learn about currents and magnets", was a complaint of one, in a
student evaluation.) But I think that the success of the course depends
primarily on the enthusiasm and rapport of the instructor. There is also a
little student resentment in that they have five contact hours with us,
and only get three credits for the course. But I feel that the two
recitation hours are needed for practice at problem-solving.
The biology department here is not enamoured by our course and it would
prefer us to give a two-semester algebra-based course for their majors..
But we already give a "Conceptual Physics" course; teaching the subject on
three different levels is, we feel, too much.
We cover only machanics and waves in the first semester, and only
electricity and magnetism (plus a small amount of optics, maybe a chapter
or two) in the second semester. Thermo, modern physics and fluids are
omitted.
I'm of the opinoin that such a course should use calculus seriously.
Otherwise, one gets complaints as to why it's a prerequisite. More
important, using calculus in physics deepens their understanding of
calculus and makes their program more coherent. So, for example, I spend
substantial time on computing electric fields and potentials for
distributed charges by integration. (Chabay and Sherwood's book also
emphasizes this.)
Hope this helps in response to your inquiry.
Allen Miller, Physics Department, Syracuse University.