For a while I’ve thought I should write up a paper on my biophysics-for-non-science-majors course, just to document what its motivations are and how I’ve approached teaching it, in case it helps spur others to create similar courses. I’ve finally done this; a pre-print is on arXiv here: http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.0666 (“The Physics of Life,” an undergraduate general education biophysics course).
I submitted it a few weeks ago to the American Journal of Physics, who immediately rejected it since they won’t publish papers on whole courses (just little pieces of courses). I will try sending it to Physics Education; it’s considerably longer than their usual article size, so even if they take it, it might get eviscerated. The arXiv version might be the sought-after director’s cut that captures the original vision!
If it’s rejected, my backup dissemination plan is to leave paper copies at bus stops and airport terminals.
In case anyone from my class this term sees this post and reads the paper: you’ll spoil lots of the surprises coming up, but I admire your investigative spirit!
Update: The paper is published, in Physics Education! Vol. 50, p. 358-366 (2015). Link.
You should publish a textbook and paint all the illustrations (in all your abundant free time).
Bummer! And I completely agree with Karen!