Pre-Service Education Working Group
Notes from September 7, 2006 PSEWG Telecon

Participants

Doug Lombardi
Denise Smith
Lin Chambers
Christine Shupla
Rick Pomeroy
Anita Krishnamurthi
Julie Lutz
Laurie Ruberg
Stephanie Stockman
Susana Deustua
Ted Hodapp

Conversation began with the plans for ASP next week

  • Rick is a panelist on a pre-service professional development workshop organized by the professional development team (with lead by Jennifer and Greg) that will be held Monday afternoon

  • Most of the telecom members will be at ASP; Doug, Lin, and Ted will not

  • Members of the PSEWG would like to have a get-together for lunch at 11:30 on Monday during ASP

Rick also described the work on the ASTE meeting; he said that while it is progressing nicely, if the plans for a tour of KSC aren’t firm soon, too many conference attendees won’t be able to include it in their travel plans

Bill Waller invited Ted Hodapp to join our telecon; his PhysTEC program was recommended as a good model for achieving some of our goals.

Theodore Hodapp, Ph. D.,
Director of Education and Outreach
American Physical Society                
Email: [email protected]
One Physics Ellipse
College Park, MD 20740
Phone: 301-209-3263
Professor of Physics, Hamline University, St. Paul, MN
E-mail: [email protected]

Denise described the PSEWG to Ted, who then shared information about PhysTEC which is concerned with physics and teacher preparation (both high school physics and physical science preparation for future elementary and middle school teachers)

  • PhysTec is finished with its fifth year and starting its sixth

  • It’s received funding from a number of sources, including a large amount from NSF and donations from corporations and individuals

  • It works with universities; they have 8 project sites, funded $120,000 per year

  • Each site is asked to address how they teach, including inquiry and best-practices in their introductory science courses

  • 10% of the physics teachers each year have gone through one of their programs

    • The USA education system prepares 300 new physics teachers each year, but needs 1,000 each year; the others are teachers teaching out-of-subject, retired professionals, etc.

    • Physics is the science that is most likely to be taught by someone who does not have an education in that subject

    • In addition to recruiting and training new physics teachers, the project also moniters its impact and the quality of teachers

    • Their Reform Teacher Observation Program is designed to help assess the quality of teacher

  • Their organization, PTEC includes 48 institutional members, concerned with physics and physical science teacher preparation.

    • They are creating a library of resources (K–12) at Physics Teacher Education Coalition

    • They host an annual conference, which they cap at 120; this year it will be March 3–4.

    • Bringing Education and Physics faculty together

    • They have had some success; sometimes forcing the staffs to work together

    • They have identified scientists working within the school of education in some cases, which has helped

    • They have funding for two more years, and may expand to encompass more in the future

There was discussion about approaching other professional organizations

  • Lin mentioned that PhysTEC is operated by APS and mentioned that AGU is a member of the American Institute of Physics, perhaps there could be collaboration

  • Stephanie Stockman said there is a new Education person at AGU, and she would find some information on some of the education programs they’ve done in the past to share

  • Susana expressed interest in collaborating with DPS as well

  • Susana also said it would be interesting to learn which people overlap in DPS and AGU education—“Venn diagram” people

Denise asked whether the working group would like to have a meeting of smaller groups this spring, and what would be the most use?

  • Christine explained that SCORE could support small breakout group meetings if desired, to plan an “ideal” workshop or  institute, which could then be tested

  • Stephanie Stockman mentioned that more telecom time would be more important right now than meeting; we’ve become scattered during the summer and need more phone-time to regroup

  • There were no other responses; we’d like to hear more from those who weren’t able to join the telecon

Should PSEWG have a strong presence at any conferences of interest between Jan 15 and June 30 2007?  Please let Stephanie, Denise, Laurie and Christine know if you are planning to attend or would like to attend any of the following conferences, with action focused on science pre-service:

There were no team reports or discussion, aside from the Data Team report emailed earlier by Christine.

 

Next PSEWG Telecon is scheduled for Thursday, Oct. 5th at 2 p.m. eastern.