Foregrounding epistemology and everyday intuitions in a quantum physics course for nonscience majors

Abstract

[This paper is part of the Focused Collection on Curriculum Development: Theory into Design.] In developing and modifying a course called Intuitive Quantum Physics for nonscience majors, several social and theoretical commitments informed our design decisions. We believed that the goal of a general education course should not be acquiring content knowledge alone, but more generally developing an approach to thinking scientifically. Thus, our course was designed to promote a deeper understanding of the nature of science through careful attention to students’ personal epistemologies. We emphasized everyday situations, be they social activities or personal experiences, as analogies to be used during instruction. We used these everyday events to help students make sense of quantum physics, choosing the topic exactly because it seems otherwise counterintuitive. Through this work, we hoped to help students make connections between complex topics (in this case in science) and their everyday experiences.