An Overview of the Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3) Guide
The Effective Practices for Physics Programs (EP3) guide provides guidance on how to make intentional improvements to your physics program based on evidence-based practices. The guide in broken into broad categories of "Department", "Programs", "Curriculum and Pedagogy", "Students". These categories are broken down into sections on things such as recruitment, advising, capstone experiences, skills needed by students, and many others. Of particular interest to us here at PICUP is the section on computational skills.
Each section within the guide includes a list of effective practices along with suggestions on how to assess the outcomes of implementing the practices. For example, the section on computational skills walks you through a series of steps to determine the goals and plan for providing these skills to students, integrating opportunities to develop the computational skills across the curriculum, provide opportunities for students to apply those skills, and communicating the importance of those skills to students. The computational skills section also lists some questions to ask yourself to determine the effectiveness of your implementation.
