A practicum course involving actual classroom experience in implementing methods of teaching based on Physics Education Research (PER). Students have direct interaction with learners in the classroom during group activities, laboratory exercises and problem-solving. PHY300, the theory course based on PER, is a pre requisite/co-requisite. Permission of the instructor required. May be repeated once for credit. Prerequisites: PHY 117 and/or PHY 118. (E)

A course emphasizing the pedagogy in physics based on Physics Education Research (PER). Readings and discussion emphasize the research literature and strategies for implementing successful and effective methods of teaching physics at the introductory level in the classroom. Permission of the instructor required.  May be repeated once for credit. Prerequisites: PHY 117 and/or PHY 118. (E)

Topics course.: Humans have always sought to elevate the conditions of their existence. What differentiates enhancement’s strongest proponents, so-called transhumanists, from earlier thinkers like the ancient Greeks is their belief that crossing the divide from our plane of being to a higher one is possible, even inevitable, through humans’ technological ingenuity. Given their content and implications, scrutiny of transhumanists’ views is essential.

An examination of the works of some major moral theorists of the Western philosophical tradition and their implications for our understanding of the nature of the good life and the sources and scope of our moral responsibilities. Enrollment limited to 25 students.

A study of Western philosophy from Bacon through the 18th century, with emphasis on Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and especially Kant. Maximum number of students per section 15.

Topics course.: Topology is a kind of geometry in which important properties of a figure are preserved under continuous motions (homeomorphisms). This course gives students an introduction to some of the classical topics in the area: the basic notions of point set topology (including connectedness and compactness) and the definition and use of the fundamental group. The course could be taken concurrently with Real Analysis.) Prerequisites: MTH 280 or 281 or permission of the instructor.

Same as MTH 220. (Formerly MTH 245). An application-oriented introduction to modern statistical inference: study design, descriptive statistics; random variables; probability and sampling distributions; point and interval estimates; hypothesis tests, resampling procedures and multiple regression. A wide variety of applications from the natural and social sciences are used. Classes meet for lecture/discussion and for a required laboratory that emphasizes analysis of real data.

Vector spaces, matrices, linear transformations, systems of linear equations. Applications to be selected from differential equations, foundations of physics, geometry and other topics. Prerequisite: MTH 112 or the equivalent, or MTH 111 and MTH 153; MTH 153 is suggested. Enrollment limit of 25 students.

Israel, from the pre-state origins of Zionism in the late 19th century to the present. Analysis of ongoing challenges, with special attention to competing identities, the place of religion in civil life, political conflict, and traditions of critical self-reflection. Interpretation of Israeli political and cultural history through discussion of primary sources and documentary film.

Western cultures have long been fascinated and puzzled by the East, and by China in particular. As critics such as Edward Said have long made clear, from the late medieval period until the 19th century the encounter between the West and China has also been predominantly one-sided. One of the earliest encounters was through the well-documented travels of the Venetian merchant Marco Polo. Seven centuries later, Italian film directors seem to have continued that tradition and have been among the first Westerners to make full-length films in the People’s Republic of China.