Physics and Mathematics OCW

NCTU (a university in Taiwan) has implemented OCW for Calculus I/II and Physics courses.  The university has its own digital content office and built a "classroom" exclusively for filming its courseware.  The program started in 2006 and is funded by the Ministry of Education.  The reason the courses offered by this university are Calculus and Physics is that the University is well known for its teaching and research in science and engineering.   Two of the crucial entry level courses are Physics and Calculus.

 

Using the courseware the university offer a pre-university opportunity for entering students to complete Calculcus I/II and Physics in the summer before the freshman yer.  This is intended to bridge the gap between high school and university material.  The students, at the completion of the 8 weeks, take an assessment.  If they pass, they are awareded credit for the courses and can move on to higher courses.  Twenty-six students registered for the program (which is free) and only 1 student passed both calculus courses and 7 passed Physics.  Since the course was completed in the summer between high school and university, this isn't too surprising (since students want to enjoy summer vacation).  However, I was somewhat disappointed because of the potential in time and money to the students.  I would have expected maybe 5 or 6 to have complete.  This was somewhat disappointing.  I must remember, though, these students are still essentially high school students.....

 

NCTU has also implemented OCW in Physics during the regular semester.  Students who registered for the course were not aware of the OCW content before the 1st day of class.  Thus, the students did not self-select for the delivery method.  No students dropped out of the course and the class size remains roughly same size as typical face-to-face course.  Originally, Physics was a 4 credit course meeting 4 hours a week.  Using OCW students come to class once every two weeks for recitation/quiz.  This allowed instructor to engage students in discussions that likely would not have been discussed in class in the traditional format.  The course offered in this format exhibit a, what I consider good< pass rate of approximately 80%.

 

I found this talk particularly interesting.  This is the direction I envision taking my instruction.  However, I am not sure I am ready to take the leap of meeting with Calculus students once every two weeks.  I could envision doing so once a week. 

 

This gave me much food for thought for my future courses...and the possibility of creating opencourseware.