For all the effort and energy expended in them, high-enrollment introductory courses often conjure images of impersonal classrooms where students have limited opportunities to actively engage with the material, the instructor, and each other.
Notre Dame Learning’s Foundational Course Transformation Academy (FCTA) is helping departments at the University tackle the challenges inherent in teaching these classes by working with faculty to revitalize and redesign a high-priority group of them across the disciplines, a testament to the critical purpose such courses serve.
“It’s easy to think of everyone who’s in the room for a large first-year intro course as being there simply because they have to be in order to fulfill a requirement,” said Ron Metoyer, vice president and associate provost for teaching and learning, who oversees Notre Dame Learning. “But these classes are truly foundational to student success, preparing hundreds of undergraduates each year for more advanced, specialized studies as they move through their college careers. Faculty deserve all the support we can give them to make the learning environment as strong as it can be.”
This past spring marked a significant milestone for the FCTA, as the Department of Physics and Astronomy, the first to engage in the academy’s three-year process, launched its new Engineering Physics I, a required course for students intending to pursue a major in Notre Dame’s College of Engineering.
Treating Teaching as a Research Project
Launched in fall 2023, the FCTA partners academic departments with a team of pedagogical, learning design, academic media, and technology experts from Notre Dame Learning, the University’s hub of teaching excellence and innovation. They work together with colleagues from across campus, including the University’s Office of Undergraduate Education and Institutional Research, Innovation, & Strategy (IRIS), to ensure course redesigns represent Notre Dame thinking as an institution, with decisions grounded in the analysis of student data, cutting-edge pedagogical techniques, and faculty experiences teaching the courses.
The FCTA is led by Kathy Quardokus Fisher, assistant director for faculty teaching initiatives in Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence; Jenna Smith, an associate teaching professor of physics, was the faculty lead for the redesign of Engineering Physics I. While faculty throughout the department contributed to the project, a group of five—Smith, Badih Assaf, Matt Becker, Kevin Lannon, and David Robertson—served as the core collaborators with Notre Dame Learning.
Robertson, a teaching professor of physics who acts as the course coordinator, pointed to being given the chance to “really treat teaching itself as a research project” as a highlight of redesigning the course via the FCTA.
“A big aspect of the project that was new was also the ability to leverage data analysis through IRIS and elsewhere, qualitative and quantitative data, that informed all of our decisions,” he said. “So just having the time and space to do that from the beginning and build everything in a way that we thought was best was the main thing.”
The Redesigned Course
In a given semester, there are multiple sections of Engineering Physics I, taught by multiple physics faculty members, and the lineup of instructors can change from year to year. Reconsidering the course from the ground up therefore took a department-wide commitment that extended beyond the leadership of the FCTA team and includes investment in practices to onboard new instructors and refresh course materials such as assessments over time.
“This has given us the opportunity to redesign a collaborative course,” Smith said. “And the endorsement from the provost’s office, the endorsement from our Chair [Morten Eskildsen], the buy-in of the higher-ups and the grassroots part of our faculty really let this redesign be done upfront entirely and in a very focused way.”
All elements of the course were revitalized to encourage a more active and learning-centered environment. Especially notable among the changes the department implemented are:
- a remodeled classroom in Nieuwland Hall that facilitates both student group work and instructors’ ability to walk around the room and interact with the class
- the prominent and consistent articulation of intended learning outcomes to help students understand not only what they should be learning but also why it’s important
- post-exam reports that document student progress toward achieving those learning outcomes, something Roberston said further shows them “what they need to do to improve, where they still need to shore things up, and just giv[es] them more directed feedback about where they are”
- videos that students—many of whom have not taken a physics class before—can watch anytime to refresh their prior math skills as well as develop strategies for solving physics problem sets and studying for exams
These elements were merged with staples like in-class demonstrations of physical principles to create the new version of the course. The FCTA team also partnered with the Learning Resource Center’s Huddles program to incorporate small, peer-facilitated study groups for students.
“I think a lot of the ideas that we ended up settling on for FCTA were things that either we had been doing before in bits and pieces or things that one person had tried, and another person hadn’t,” said Lannon, a professor of physics and senior associate dean for faculty affairs in the College of Science. “But it turns out if you want to have a good course, you can’t just throw a bunch of good ideas in a pile and hope that that works out. And so the FCTA team, we worked very meticulously not only to bring these ideas into the course but to make sure that they really fit together and mesh and dovetail so that the different pieces are working together.”
Click the photos to learn more about the remodeled classroom
The First Semester and Beyond
Approximately 400 undergraduates took the redesigned course in spring 2026, when it was offered across four sections taught by Lannon, Robertson, Smith, and Marc Osherson, an assistant professor of physics.
Smith found student progress with respect to solving integrative problems—i.e., those that include multiple, often unrelated physics concepts—particularly rewarding, as that type of problem-solving was a priority she and her colleagues articulated in the learning outcomes.
“We … did things like align our exam-writing with this philosophy,” she said. “So in the past, we might have stepped students through one of these integrative problems with multiple parts. But in this case, because we knew them solving an integrative problem was a goal, was a learning outcome for this course, we didn’t. We took away that scaffolding, and they’ve really risen to the occasion, and I think they’re better problem-solvers for it.”
The physics team is continuing to collaborate closely with Notre Dame Learning to roll out a redesigned Engineering Physics II, the next course in the sequence, this fall.
“Engineering Physics I for many students represents a significant obstacle in their journey towards a STEM career, and we want the students to see us as enabling them to be successful. So it’s just really great to hear that the efforts that we put in were connecting with our students.”
The upcoming fall semester will also see the launch of a redesigned Calculus I, which faculty from the Department of Mathematics have been pursuing through the FCTA. Among other innovations, they have created a new co-requisite, one-credit course for students who might benefit from the extra support.
It seems safe to assume that the math faculty’s work to promote a more learning-centered Calculus I will not go unnoticed. Because if you listen to Engineering Physics I students talk about their experience in that course, it’s clear they could tell how much care went into planning and teaching it.
In fact, one student called Lannon the best professor he’s had at Notre Dame so far, a connection his teacher does not take for granted.
“Engineering Physics I for many students represents a significant obstacle in their journey towards a STEM career, and we want the students to see us as enabling them to be successful,” Lannon said. “So it’s just really great to hear that the efforts that we put in were connecting with our students.”
About Notre Dame Learning
Notre Dame Learning houses the Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence and the Office of Digital Learning, bringing together their teaching and learning expertise along with that of the OIT’s Teaching & Learning Technologies group to serve as the hub of learning excellence and innovation at Notre Dame. Working in collaboration with instructors, departments, and colleges, Notre Dame Learning’s goal is to enable effective and engaging learning for all students through research-based strategies and effective use of technologies across all modalities.
Originally published by at learning.nd.edu on August 11, 2026.