Your Self-Evaluations should address achievements in content learning and process skills, as well as areas for improvement, tied to your Individual Learning Goals, Program Learning Goals (summarized below), and the Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate (see below). Students in Advanced Lab Projects should also make sure to address their learning goals for that part of the program. In general, graduating seniors (with some exceptions that you have been notified of) should focus on Academic Statements, not Self-Evaluations.

Program Learning Goals (taken from program syllabi):

• Interrogate how issues of power, identity, privilege, and equity intersect with the teaching, learning, and practice of math and science.
• Strive to create an intentionally inclusive and anti-bias learning environment that is attentive to and supportive of the unique gifts and background of each student with the goal of equitable outcomes for all.

• Improve your ability to articulate and assume responsibility for your own work.
• Strengthen your collaborative skills and the ability to respond in useful ways to the work of colleagues.
• Improve your skills in clear communication of mathematical and scientific ideas, both orally and in writing.
• Improve your reading of technical texts to develop conceptual understanding and procedural skills.

• Develop and utilize increasingly sophisticated mathematical models that describe and explain physical systems.
• Use multiple representations to gain a firm understanding of the concepts and procedures of differential equations, linear algebra, and multi-variable & vector calculus.
• Develop deep conceptual understanding and sophisticated problem-solving abilities related to classical mechanics, electricity & magnetism, and quantum mechanics.
• Use a computer based algebra system to visualize and solve complex problems in math and physics.

• Gain a survey exposure to a variety of advanced physics lab experiments and apparatus that covers some of the breadth of physics, while developing insight into the fundamental interplay between the experimental, computational, and theoretical aspects of physics.
• Develop insight into the fundamental interplay between the experimental, computational, and theoretical aspects of physics through deep and sustained exposure to one or a few pieces of advanced laboratory apparatus.

Course-Scale Learning Goals: The following Course-Scale Learning Goals are taken from those created for Upper-Division Electrostatics (E&M I) and Upper-Division Electrodynamics (E&M II) and Upper Division Quantum Mechanics I by the Department of Physics and the Science Education Initiative at the University of Colorado at Boulder (contact:  Stephanie V. Chasteen, Stephanie.Chasteen@colorado.edu) with modifications by Krishna M. Chowdary at The Evergreen State College for the academic program Physical Systems and Applied Mathematics (PSAM).

1. Intellectual maturity: Students should accept full responsibility for their own learning. They should be aware of what they do and don’t understand about physical phenomena and classes of problems. They should learn to ask thoughtful, sophisticated, specific questions. Students should learn to identify and articulate where they are experiencing difficulty, and take action to move beyond that difficulty (e.g. by appropriately seeking out allowed resources). They should regularly check their understanding against these learning goals and seek out appropriate help to fill in any gaps.
2. Build on earlier studies and make connections to other materials: Students should deepen their understanding of introductory and junior-level classical mechanics, electromagnetism, and quantum mechanics, and necessary math skills (in particular, differential equations, linear algebra, and vector calculus, LG#5). Students should make connections to other physics material (e.g. waves, optics, thermodynamics, statistical mechanics), other sciences (e.g. chemistry), and other more broadly interdisciplinary studies.
3. Communication: Students should be able to justify and explain their thinking and/or approach to a problem or analysis of a physical situation, in either written or oral form.
4. Organized knowledge: Students should be able to articulate the important ideas from each chapter, section, and/or lecture, thus indicating how they have organized their content knowledge. They should be able to filter this knowledge to access the information they’ll need to solve a particular physics problem, and make connections between different concepts. This organizational process should build on knowledge gained in earlier physics classes. For example, students should see the various topics in EM as part of a coherent theory of electromagnetism; i.e., as a consequence of Maxwell’s equations.
5. Math/physics connection: Students should be able to translate a description of a junior-level classical mechanics, electromagnetism, or quantum mechanics problem into the mathematical equation(s) necessary to solve it; explain the physical meaning of the final solution, including how this is reflected in its mathematical formulation; and be able to achieve physical insight through the mathematics of a problem.
6. Visualization: Students should be able to sketch or otherwise visually represent a physical situation given e.g., electric or magnetic fields, charge distributions; or e.g., wave function, potential, probability distribution. They should be able to use a computer program to graph physical parameters, create animations of time-dependent solutions, and compare analytic solutions with computations. Students should recognize when each of the two methods (by hand or computer) is most appropriate.
7. Problem-solving techniques: Students should be able to choose and apply the problem-solving technique that is appropriate for a particular situation (e.g., whether to use the integral or differential forms of Maxwell’s equations). They should be able to apply these methods to novel contexts (i.e., solving problems that do not map directly to examples in a textbook), indicating how they understand the essential features of the technique, rather than just the rote mechanics of its application. Some techniques particular classical mechanics, electromagnetism, and quantum mechanics include (but are not limited to)
   • …Approximations: Students should be able to effectively use approximation techniques, and recognize when they are appropriate (e.g., at points far away or very close to the source, or when the energy is very high, or when the barrier width is very wide). They should be able to decide how many terms of a series expansion must be retained to find a solution of a given order, and be able to complete a Taylor Series to at least two terms.
   • …Symmetries:  Students should be able to recognize symmetries, and be able to take advantage of them when choosing the appropriate method of solution (e.g., correctly applying the Maxwell-Ampere law to calculate the magnetic field of an infinitely long wire, or when parity allows you to eliminate certain solutions).
   • …Integration:  Students should be able to write down the line, surface or volume integral required for solving a specific problem, and correctly follow through with the integration.
   • …Superposition:  Students should recognize that – in a linear system – a general solution can be formed by the superposition of multiple components, and a specific solution found by applying appropriate boundary conditions.
8. Problem-solving strategy: Students should be able to draw on an organized set of content knowledge (LG#4), and apply problem-solving techniques (LG#7) with that knowledge in order to carry out lengthy analyses of physical situations. They should be able to connect all the pieces of a problem to reach a final solution. They should recognize the value for learning the material of taking wrong turns, be able to recover from their mistakes, and persist in working towards a solution even though they don’t necessarily see the possibly many steps of the path to that solution when they first begin the problem. Students should be able to articulate what it is that needs to be solved for in a given problem, and know when they have found it.
9. Expecting and checking solutions: When appropriate for a given problem, students should be able to articulate their expectations for the solution, such as the magnitude or direction of a vector field, the general shape of a wave function, the dependence of the solution on coordinate variables, its behavior at large distances, or problem symmetry. For all problems, students should be able to justify the reasonableness of a solution (e.g., by checking its symmetry, looking at limiting or special cases, relating to cases with known solutions, dimensional analysis, and/or checking the scale/order of magnitude of the answer).

Expectations of an Evergreen Graduate

1. Articulate and assume responsibility for your own work.
2. Participate collaboratively and responsibly in our diverse society.
3. Communicate creatively and effectively.
4. Demonstrate integrative, independent, critical thinking.
5. Apply qualitative, quantitative, and creative modes of inquiry appropriately to practical and theoretical problems across disciplines.
6. As a culmination of your education, demonstrate depth, breadth, and synthesis of learning and the ability to reflect on the personal and social significance of that learning.