Targeted Poster Sessions

Various Times & Rooms Listed Below
Targeted Poster Presenters:  Please follow the instructions provided here.

Targeted Poster Session: TP-A

Goals and Assessment in the PhysTEC project: Drawing from Research and Systematic Self-Assessment to Promote Inquiry-Oriented Teacher Education

Organizers: 
    Laura Lising (llising@towson.edu), Towson University
    Noah Finkelstein, University of Colorado, Boulder
    Bob Poel, Western Michigan University
    Ted Hodapp, American Physical Society

Where:  Union Collegiate

When:  8:15 – 9:45 & 1:45 – 3:15, Thursday, August 11

Theme:  The Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC) is a national effort aimed at improving and promoting the education of future physics and physical science teachers. One of the main goals is to develop programs that are capable of producing more better-prepared elementary, middle, and high school teachers, committed to interactive, inquiry-based approaches to teaching. This involves collaboration between physics and education faculty, establishing a network of institutions, and assessing the success of various ideas, methods, and program elements, which can then be disseminated. The project, overseen through the American Physical Society, and funding by the APS, NSF, and a national campaign, currently consists of eight Primary Program Institutions and a number of institutions forming a Coalition that are deeply engaged in teacher preparation. The eight primary institutions have been drawing from PER and other educational research and the expertise of local practicing teachers (who spend a year as a teacher-in-residence at each institution) to develop programs to meet the project goals.

Goals:  In working toward more inquiry-focused teacher preparation, each institution must develop or adopt various types of assessments to evaluate the successes and challenges they are having. During this session, several of the primary program institutions will discuss their programs, the assessment instruments they are using, their results so far, and the questions that are being raised for future work. One of the strengths of this project and our assessment efforts is that the various institutions, while focusing on the same clearly articulated goals, are taking approaches that vary widely in some aspects and in other aspects are quite similar, with just a few key differences. This allows us to communicate, compare, and learn from each other, gaining insights into subtleties of our results that might be less accessible in a smaller, less varied project context. With this poster session, we hope that by sharing our results and current questions with the PER community, we can further broaden the dialogue.

Targeted Poster Session: TP-B

Research on Improving Content and Pedagogical Knowledge of Science Teachers

Organizers:  Chandralekha Singh (clsingh@pitt.edu), University of Pittsburgh

Where:  Union Saltair

When:   8:15 – 9:45 & 3:45 – 5:15, Thursday, August 11

Theme:  The theme of this targeted poster session is consistent with the theme of the conference because this session will highlight research on critical issues in pre-service and in-service teacher preparation. We will discuss the development and evaluation of interventions which are grounded in physics education research to alleviate the serious shortage of well-trained science teachers in the U.S. Topics in this session include research on increasing awareness, enthusiasm, and appreciation of the intellectual demands of physics teaching amongst science undergraduates, designing professional development and assessment for out-of-field teachers, teacher education using state-of-the-art digital video databases, and research and development on preparing teachers to deal with gender issues in classrooms.

Goals:  This session will focus on research on important issues in pre-service and in-service teacher education to prepare qualified science teachers. We hope to convey to the participants how methods of physics education research can be used to design, implement and evaluate strategies to improve teacher preparedness. The participants will be given an opportunity to explore issues related to research on increasing awareness, enthusiasm, and appreciation of the intellectual demands of physics teaching amongst science undergraduates, designing professional development and assessment for out-of-field teachers, teacher education using state-of-the-art digital video databases, and research and development on preparing teachers to deal with gender issues in classrooms. The participants will have an opportunity to learn about various evaluation methods including pre/post-tests measures of attitude and expectations about science teaching before and after an intervention, self and peer evaluation of their own teaching after an intervention, content-based pre/post-tests given to students who received instruction from the teachers who went through a certain intervention, and audio-taped focus group discussions with the target audience.

Targeted Poster Session: TP-C

The Changing Face of Teacher Training: Creating Well-Qualified Physics and Astronomy Educators in the Age of No Child Left Behind

Organizer:  Rebecca Lindell (rlindel@siue.edu), Southern Illinois University Edwardsville

Where:  OSH 235

When:  1:45 – 3:15 & 3:45 – 5:15, Thursday, August 11

Theme:  With the advent of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), states are now held to higher accountability standards for improving their elementary and secondary schools, as well as ensuring that no child is trapped within a failing school system. States have been mandated to implement statewide accountability systems based on challenging standards in mathematics and reading in addition to mandated statewide testing. States are also required to ensure that there is a highly qualified teacher in every public school classroom by the end of the 2005-2006 school year. By law a highly qualified teacher is now one who not only possesses a teaching certificate, but also has demonstrated competence in any subject area taught. To meet these new mandates, many states have had to make radical changes to their physics/ science certification programs. These changes have many implications for current and future physics and astronomy teachers, as well as challenges for the programs that train them. One of the greatest challenges of this legislature is the short timeline with which these changes must be implemented. In this targeted poster session, we will highlight the changes some programs have taken to adjust for NCLB, specifically ones that have utilized the results of PER to inform the best practices demonstrated to future and in-service teachers.

Goals:  This session hopes to inform participants of the changing nature of physics teacher training as a result of NCLB. As many individuals hired in PER positions are also responsible for their schools physics teacher training programs, this poster session hopes to not only inform the community of the changes to teaching certification, but also highlight how several programs have utilized PER results to meet the needs of both future and in-service teachers. Because many of the changes have occurred within the last few years, many members of the community may also not be aware of the changing needs of these teachers and many programs may have been left at a loss on how to make these changes.

Combined Workshop & Discussion Session: W&DS

Physics by Inquiry: Preparing K-12 teachers to teach physics and physical science

Organizers:  Donna Messina, Paula R. L. Heron, Peter S. Shaffer, and Lillian C. McDermott, Physics Education Group, Department of Physics, University of Washington

Where:  Union Panorama East

When:  8:15 – 9:45 & 1:45 – 3:45, Thursday, August 11

Abstract:  This combined workshop/discussion session will illustrate the type of instruction by guided inquiry that research has shown can help teachers develop a sound understanding of the physics and physical science that they are expected to teach.  The workshop will feature excerpts from a WGBH video that was filmed during one of the intensive NSF Summer Institutes that our group conducts for K-12 inservice teachers.  Workshop participants will be able to observe the types of interactions that take place among teachers as they work through the exercises and experiments in Physics by Inquiry.  In another excerpt, a dialogue between a teacher and an instructor illustrates the nature of questions that are used to probe and assess the development of concepts and reasoning skills.  The video will provide the basis for a discussion of the need for special physics courses for teachers, the benefits and challenges of instruction by guided inquiry, and some of the practical issues involved.