Partnership for Integration of Computation into Undergraduate Physics

Simulation Led Optical Design Assessments (SLODA) are a means of integrating practical, application-based skills in computation and optical design principles into a lecture-based curriculum that does not have the luxury of relying upon a complementary laboratory curriculum for granting students exposure to those practical and application based skills. In order to introduce students to these practical, application based skills, the SLODA curriculum integrates a computational approach to the presentation of theoretical optics. Computational skills and considerations are therefore scaffolded within the course curriculum. After establishing basic foundations in both computation and theoretical optics, the SLODA curriculum then shifts towards larger, application-based student assessments. These Simulation Led Optical Design Assessments integrate the design of optical systems with computational modeling of those systems and the underlying optical phenomena by which they operate.