The Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PTEC) has a great new map of professional development opportunities across the US. Use the map to find professional development opportunities for physics and astronomy inservice and preservice teachers: http://www.ptec.org/pd/
Month: April 2011
Notes from the Spring Conference on April 23rd, 2011 are posted with links that are currently available. If you need anything corrected or would like to add anything to a post, please email Bree at Secretary@NCNAAPT.org. If you were at the conference and would like to print out a certificate for your Professional Development records, you can download it here as a Document or a pdf. A note from our Program Chair, Paul Robinson, about our meeting: “AAPT’ers, What a great meeting! About 75 physics teachers–one of our largest turnouts in years–came to hear and see Adam Weiner’s great talk…
“Teaching Strategies for Conceptual Physics for Freshman” Bree Barnett Dreyfuss and Jon Brix Amador Valley High School, Pleasanton, CA Jon and Bree discussed several strategies for teaching freshmen Physics: Use hands on learning & projects Enforce vocabulary Use the GUESS (Givens, Unknown, Equation, Substitute and Solve) calculation method Encourage partner work Jon and Bree discussed difficulties in teaching the class due to low math skills, special needs students, varying grade levels, etc. The class requires a variety of strategies and resources in order to keep them engaged. Additional resources will be available on Bree’s website. “Developing Some of the Skills…
Paul Doherty & Don Rathjen Paul gave us a brief history of the Exploratorium and its growth over the years. Participants were then split into two groups to explore the Exploratorium’s favorite exhibits. Don and Paul gave tours of the museum and met back together for one big demonstration. Highlights include exploring the reflective properties of the dome at the Palace of Fine Arts and the hidden resonance tube inside one of its pillars. Paul demonstrated the “whirly” sound resonance tube in a larger-than-normal format. A video will be available once its edited.
Adam Weiner, Bishop School in La Jolla, CA Adam uses movie clips to teach traditional problems to engage students in the problem. (book available for signing) Some movies are good to show to explore “good science” and data can be collected from the clips in order to create problems. Others are examples of “bad science” and can be used to generate discussions about what is wrong based on the science students know. Adam likes action movies such as Spiderman, Spiderman 2, Spiderman 3, XXX, 2001: Space Odyssey, etc. Website: www.hollywoodmoviephysics.com