As I go into my third round of teaching the second semester of advanced quantum mechanics I’ve been giving some thought into what to do with the discussion sections. These are standard part of many upper level courses at University of Massachusetts Amherst, but there seems to be no consistent way of using them. The most recent paper that I read on student challenges in learning degenerate perturbation theory, really helped me see the parallels between teaching Quantum Mechanics for second and third year majors compared to teaching of introductory physics to students in their first year. As mentioned in my last post, in both of these cases students lack what we would call quote correct unquote? Intuition about the subject. In the case of introductory physics the alternative conceptions of motion and forces are well documented. In the case of quantum mechanics, on the other hand, students is lack of Prior intuition is completely understandable given the removal of the subject from their everyday experience and the famously non-intuitive nature of quantum mechanics as a subject.
This parallel between introductory physics and advanced quantum mechanics presented in the paper suggests a way in which to use these discussion sections: use them for students to complete tutorials. As detailed in the paper described in my last post, there are now several different tutorials for quantum mechanics such as the quilts. Thus, the discussion could be a good time for students to work through some of these tutorials in the company of both myself and a graduate ta. This would serve an additional function in helping graduate TAs learn how to apply active learning pedagogies to more advanced courses.