Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS April Meeting 2014
Volume 59, Number 5
Saturday–Tuesday, April 5–8, 2014; Savannah, Georgia
Session M10: Invited Session: AAPT: Readying Physics Departments to Engage in Teacher Preparation in Course Transformation |
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Sponsoring Units: FEd Chair: Monica Plisch, American Physical Society Room: 204 |
Sunday, April 6, 2014 3:30PM - 4:06PM |
M10.00001: It starts with one: Leading change and forming partnerships for teacher preparation and pedagogical change Invited Speaker: Laurie McNeil In the past decade in the Physics \& Astronomy Department at UNC-Chapel Hill we have undertaken a dramatic transformation of our introductory physics courses, and have established a program to train high school physics teachers where none existed before at our institution. While we have not yet completed all the changes we have decided to make (stay tuned!), we have come far enough for me to draw some lessons on how such substantial improvement and innovation can best be accomplished. One important lesson is that if the changes are to be broad in scope and impact, and are to be sustainable in the long term, it is necessary to work with partners within and beyond one's department. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 6, 2014 4:06PM - 4:42PM |
M10.00002: Sustained programs in physics teacher education Invited Speaker: Rachel Scherr For over a decade, physics teacher education programs have been transformed at a number of institutions around the country through support from the Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC), led by the American Physical Society in partnership with the American Association of Physics Teachers. In 2012-2013, PhysTEC supported an independent study on the sustainability of its sites after project funding ends. The study sought to measure the extent to which programs have been sustained and to identify what features should be prioritized for building sustainable physics teacher education programs. Most PhysTEC legacy sites studied have sustained their production of physics teachers. A few sites studied have thriving physics teacher education programs, that is, programs that have continued to substantially increase their production of teachers since the PhysTEC award. All of the studied sites that sustained their production of physics teachers have a champion of physics teacher education and corresponding institutional motivation and commitment. The necessity of the champion was known from the Report of the Task Force on Teacher Education in Physics (T-TEP report) and borne out by this study. The necessity of institutional motivation and commitment is a finding of this study. At some sites, PhysTEC support has precipitated an institutional focus on physics teacher education, leveraging other resources (including both awards and personnel) benefiting physics teacher education. The study also documented the sustainability of components of physics teacher education programs, such as recruitment, early teaching experiences, and a teacher in residence. Sustained components tend to be those that have direct benefit to undergraduates in the physics department, whereas less-sustained components seem to be those that primarily benefit secondary teachers. The number of sustained components does not appear to correspond to teacher production; that is, sites that have sustained more (or fewer) components do not produce larger (or smaller) numbers of teachers. This result further supports the finding that the presence of the champion and corresponding institutional motivation and commitment are the key features of successful physics teacher education programs. [Preview Abstract] |
Sunday, April 6, 2014 4:42PM - 5:18PM |
M10.00003: Research on U.S. physics teacher education Invited Speaker: David E. Meltzer College and university physics departments have long been the primary source of physics-specific education received by the nation's high school physics teachers, who now number nearly 30,000. Since the 1880s, U.S. physicists have set out specific expectations and recommendations for the education of physics teachers, and various methods and programs have been utilized to prepare these teachers. However, relatively little research has been done regarding the effectiveness of the various instructional methods. Only rarely have there been investigations of links between physics teacher education programs, and the learning outcomes of students taught by teachers who were educated in those programs. The available evidence suggests that physics teacher education programs that utilize materials and methods developed and validated through physics education research (PER) have been particularly effective in preparing well-qualified teachers. I will give an up-to-date review of the research in this area, and discuss relevant details of the investigation recently reported by the APS/AAPT/AIP Task Force on Teacher Education in Physics (T-TEP) [D. Meltzer, M. Plisch, and S. Vokos, editors, \textit{Transforming the Preparation of Physics Teachers: A Call to Action} (APS, College Park, 2012)]. [Preview Abstract] |
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