http://www.ptec.org/ The latest material additions to the PTEC. en-US Copyright 2012, ComPADRE.org editor@ptec.org editor@ptec.org Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:59:25 EST http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://www.compadre.org/portal/services/images/LogoSmallPTEC.gif http://www.ptec.org/ 125 35 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11671 Though few would dispute its value, the job of providing apprenticeships for some 200,000 teacher candidates each year in real classrooms is a massive and complex undertaking. About 1,400 higher education institutions work with many thousands of school districts across the United States to place, mentor and supervise teacher candidates in what is popularly known as “student teaching.” Even as the profession pushes for more and earlier field work opportunities, student teaching is the final clinical experience. During the typical semester-long experience, student teaching candidates must synthesize everything they have learned about planning instruction: collecting or developing instructional materials, teaching lessons, guiding small group activities, and establishing and maintaining order—not to mention meetings with faculty and parents and, in some districts still, taking on lunchroom and playground duties. Passing (or failing) student teaching determines whether an individual will be recommended for certification as a licensed teacher. Because few dispute the tremendous potential value of student teaching, even alternate pathways to profession, often criticized for taking too many shortcuts, generally try to provide their teaching candidates with some kind of student teaching experience, however abbreviated. Surveys of new teachers suggest that student teaching is the most important part of their teaching training experience. Education Practices/Teacher Preparation http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=11671 Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:59:25 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11671 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11672 Few would disagree that clinical experience is critical for teacher development. Teaching is, after all, a demanding clinical practice, requiring teachers to orchestrate complex classroom interactions designed to help children learn. While clinical practice rests on a body of professional knowledge, ultimately teachers need to be able to put this knowledge to use in practice. Clinical experiences during professional education provide opportunities for teachers to develop and hone their craft. Education Practices/Teacher Preparation http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=11672 Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:26:10 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11672 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11618 This book came about due to an increasing national recognition of a need for improved preparation of physics and physical science teachers. Although there is an extensive and growing body of research and research-based practice in physics teacher education, there has been no single resource for scholarly work in this area. In response, The Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC) project management selected Editors and an Editorial Board for the book based on recommendations from the physics education community. The editorial group worked to devise a set of guidelines regarding submission of manuscripts. This resulting book includes new reports that reflect cutting-edge research and practice, as well as reprints of previously published seminal papers. Published by the Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC), a project of the American Physical Society (APS) and American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT). Education Practices/Teacher Preparation http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=11618 Mon, 09 Jan 2012 16:36:49 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11618 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11491 Chicago State University is positioning itself to be a leader in preparing science teachers for the urban instructional environment by incorporating innovative, research-based instructional materials in its courses and by providing intellectual and financial support to students who choose to pursue certification in science. This past year, CSU was one of five institutions to receive funding from the American Physical Society’s PhysTEC Program to recruit students into teaching and provide a model instructional program for students interested in becoming physics teachers. Students chosen as PhysTEC fellows at CSU will have the opportunity to act as Learning Assistants in our introductory physics courses with Physics Education Research (PER) based curricula and engage in an action research project with an inservice high school physics teacher in the Teacher Immersion Institute. The intent of the PhysTEC program at CSU is to recruit more physics students into teaching and to support them in their academic and early professional careers. Education Practices/Professional Development http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=11491 Tue, 13 Dec 2011 17:43:23 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11491 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=10059 Although TAs are responsible for a significant portion of students' instruction at many universities, science TAs and their teaching have not been the focus of a significant amount of study. This dissertation begins to fill this gap by examining physics graduate students who teach discussion sections for introductory courses using tutorials, which are guided worksheets completed by groups of students. This analysis contends that considering the broader influences on TAs can account for TA behavior. Observations from two institutions (University of Colorado, Boulder and University of Maryland, College Park) show that TAs have different valuations (or buy-in) of the tutorials they teach, which have specific, identifiable consequences in the classroom. These differences can be explained by differences in the TAs’ teaching environments. Next, I examine cases of a behavior shared by three TAs, in which they focus on relatively superficial indicators of knowledge. Because the beliefs that underlie their teaching decisions vary, I argue that understanding and addressing the TAs individual beliefs will lead to more effective professional development. Lastly, this analysis advocates a new perspective on TA professional development: one in which TAs' ideas about teaching are taken to be interesting, plausible, and potentially productive. General Physics/Physics Education Research http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=10059 Tue, 13 Dec 2011 17:41:38 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=10059 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11534 The study suggests that students who are generally proficient in the Common Core standards will likely be ready for a wide range of postsecondary courses, and the more Common Core standards in which they are proficient, the wider the range of postsecondary-level classes they will be ready to undertake. We note the danger in assuming that this finding is synonymous with the idea that students who have learned the Common Core standards are fully ready for college and careers. Other important dimensions of readiness exist, upon which the Common Core standards are necessarily silent. Careful attention should be given to comprehensive conceptions of college and career readiness when considering which aspects of readiness the standards address. Education Foundations/Assessment http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=11534 Tue, 13 Dec 2011 17:41:03 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11534 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11545 These two studies place a capstone on a decade of teacher effectiveness research. We now have compelling evidence that when teachers team up with their colleagues they are able to create a culture of success in schools, leading to teaching improvements and student learning gains. The clear policy and practice implication is that great teaching is a team sport. Performance appraisal, compensation, and incentive systems that focus on individual teacher efforts at the expense of collaborative professional capacity building could seriously undermine our ability to prepare today’s students for 21 st century college and career success. Every school needs good teachers—but a school does not become a great place to learn until those teachers have the leadership and support to create a learning culture that is more powerful than even the best of them can sustain on their own. These findings have significant implications for America’s competitiveness in a global innovation economy. Student mastery in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is essential to our economic growth. But America’s twenty?year decline in international science and mathematics standings tells us that we have serious challenges to overcome. Countries that persistently rank at the top of international measures of science and mathematics achievement do things differently. A growing number of reports indicates that one of their biggest advantages is in the clear, consistent, and coherent support systems they provide for teachers from preparation through induction to accomplished practice. 2 Learning is no longer preparation for the job; it is the job. Today’s students are preparing for a future in which they will invent and reinvent their work, team up to solve problems, develop new knowledge, and continuously acquire new skills. They need teachers who know how to create schools that look like the learning organizations they will work in for the rest of their lives. Education Practices/Professional Development http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=11545 Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:28:15 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11545 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=1642 This site provides background information regarding standards and guidelines for the professional conduct of teachers. It also contains papers and references on the philosophy of teaching. Other Sciences/None http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=1642 Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:24:30 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=1642 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11153 The report, Impact Evaluation of the U. S. Department of Education's Student Mentoring Program compares outcomes of students in the fourth through eighth grades who were randomly assigned to either receive or not receive school-based mentoring from one of the U. S. Department of Education's mentoring grantees. Students were compared on seventeen measures across four domains: school engagement, academic achievement, delinquent behavior, and prosocial behavior. The evaluation found that for the full sample of students, the program did not lead to statistically significant impacts on any of the measures. In addition, the evaluation estimated impacts across five subgroups for each of the outcome measures, four of which were found to be statistically significant (i.e., increased self-reported scholastic efficacy and school bonding for girls, increased self-reported future orientation for boys, decreased truancy for students under age 12, and decreased self-reported prosocial behavior for boys). These impact findings are in the context of several key program delivery findings. Thirty-five percent of the students who were assigned to the no-mentoring group received mentoring services, primarily from other providers in the community. Also, 14 percent of the students assigned to the mentoring group never got matched with a mentor. Students assigned to the mentoring group and who did meet with their mentors met (on average) for 1.1 hours per meeting, 4.4 times per month for 5.8 months. Education Practices/School Improvement http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=11153 Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:23:37 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11153 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11217 Based on an analysis of structured interviews with 6 research university physics faculty members, this paper presents our initial hypothesis of instructors' beliefs about how their students learn to solve problems in an introductory physics course. The hypothesis shows that these instructors have very general beliefs about the process of student learning that do not include many details about actual learning mechanisms. Education Foundations/Teacher Characteristics http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=11217 Thu, 01 Dec 2011 17:22:46 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11217 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11480 Written by Dr. Crystal Bailey the Education and Careers Program Manager at the American Physical Society in College Park, MD. This article from the APS Summer 2011 Forum on Education newsletter discusses the biggest challenges physics educators face today. In spite of the fact that only a tiny fraction of physics bachelors can reasonably expect to become physics faculty, students consistently name this career path as the “typical” track for physicists. Therefore a reliable, accurate source of information about physics careers is essential, in order to give students a clear picture of what’s possible after graduation, and beyond. Bailey discusses the way that the comPADRE Career Website does this. Education Practices/Careers http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=11480 Fri, 30 Sep 2011 10:26:59 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11480 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11479 The APS Forum on Education Summer 2011 Newsletter contains a variety of articles covering important matters in education. Key articles include: A State-by-State Science and Engineering Readiness Index (SERI): Grading States on Their K-12 Preparation of Future Scientists and Engineers, Physics Careers Resources, and OSP Tools and the ComPADRE OSP COLLECTION. Education Practices/Professional Development http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=11479 Wed, 28 Sep 2011 18:01:50 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11479 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11482 The Spring 2011 Newsletter from the Forum on Education for the American Physical Society. Features of the newsletter include "Forum on Engaging the Public" by Dan Dahlberg and Philip W. Hammer, "NanoJapan: Connecting U.S. Undergraduates with the Best of Nanoscience Resarch in Japan" by Cheryl Matherly and Junichiro Kono, and "Using Clickers in a University Physics Course to Improve Student Achievement" by Judith C. Stull, David M. Majerich, Andria C. Smythe, Susan Jansen Varnum, Joseph P. Ducette and Tiffany Gilles. Education Practices/Professional Development http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=11482 Wed, 28 Sep 2011 17:59:12 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11482 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11481 This paper outlines the pedagogical and technical features of the Open Source Physics (OSP) project and how we use OSP-based tools and resources to introduce modeling into the curriculum. We describe our current effort to create and distribute new material using the Easy Java Simulations and Tracker tools and how we distribute this curricular material with ComPADRE National Science Digital Library [OSP 2009]. The paper is organized as follows. Section II introduces the Modeling Cycle that is the basis for our pedagogy. Section III describes basic Easy Java Simulations concepts and section IV describes Tracker. The main features of ComPADRE are presented in section V and section VI presents the pedagogical benefits of this connection. Finally, section VII summarizes the improvements obtained by the use of our approach. Education Practices/Professional Development http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=11481 Thu, 22 Sep 2011 18:26:12 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11481 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11424 Rising Above the Gathering Storm Two Years Later: Accelerating Progress Toward a Brighter Economic Future summarizes a convocation held in April 2008 to commemorate the release of the original Gathering Storm report. The convocation featured participation by Members of Congress, Cabinet Secretaries, leaders from industry and academia, and other experts. The discussions reviewed progress made thus far in implementing the Gathering Storm recommendations to strengthen K-12 education in math and science, research, higher education, and the environment for innovation. Participants also noted that much additional work is needed to ensure that America remains a leader in science and engineering in the long term. Education Practices/School Improvement http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=11424 Fri, 02 Sep 2011 13:23:36 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11424 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11425 CCSSO received a grant from the National Science Foundation to plan and conduct a meeting that would bring together research and evaluation experts and state leaders for professional development in mathematics and science education. In April 2008 CCSSO invited 10 leaders in the field of research and evaluation of teacher professional development to meet with state education program managers and evaluators to present and discuss models for evaluating effects of professional development. Recent developments with state data systems, use of experimental designs in education research, and use of surveys and assessments has provided the tools for improved methods of evaluating professional development. The two-day conference provided an opportunity for leaders from states to learn how they can apply the models in their state programs. The following summary of presentations and discussions from the April conference are intended to provide a wider audience with information about its recommendations and results. Education Practices/Professional Development http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=11425 Fri, 02 Sep 2011 13:19:45 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11425 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11426 There is widespread concern that U.S. students entering college do not have the educational foundation to succeed in introductory science courses. Mathematics is of particular interest because proficiency in mathematics may predict performance in introductory college science courses. In the United States, numerous educational reforms focus on the accountability of schools for proficiency (mainly in mathematics and English Language Arts). However, agreement on proficiency goals that accurately reflect the needs of a diverse student population has been problematic. We collected data available through the California Department of Education's accountability progress reporting system and extracted the following data for all students and numerically significant subgroups within elementary schools: the number of students tested and the percentage of students scoring proficient or advanced for both the mathematics and ELA test. We employed linear, polynomial, and logistic models to make comparisons with state and federal growth targets for students scoring proficient or advanced within schools. Education Practices/School Improvement http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=11426 Fri, 02 Sep 2011 13:11:48 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11426 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11218 This paper combines results from a larger research study that focuses on both cognitive and social aspects of learning. The theoretical perspective used is distributed cognition, in which students, students interacting with tools (such as laboratory apparatus and computer simulators), and students interacting with others and with tools are considered a cognitive system that generates learning. According to this perspective, each element of the system contributes to the cognitive product by sharing part of the cognitive load associated with a task. The unit of analysis of this paper is a group of three students working with tools, although results from a study where the unit of analysis was the single student are also used. Education Foundations/Learning Theory http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=11218 Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:42:49 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11218 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11351 Teacher quality is the single most important lever schools have for raising student achievement. A substantial body of research indicates that new teachers are less able than their more experienced colleagues to help students fulfill their academic potential. Yet in many school districts particularly those in urban settings as many as half of the teachers may have less than five years experience. In addition, the students who face the greatest challenges are most likely to be assigned novice teachers. By supporting new teachers, increasing their effectiveness, and reducing turnover, school districts can give the children most in need of high-quality teaching a real chance at success. In this practical yet visionary book, Ellen Moir and her colleagues at the New Teacher Center review what current research suggests (and doesn t) about the power of welldesigned mentoring programs to shape teacher and student outcomes. They set forth the principles of high-quality instructional mentoring and describe the elements of a rigorous professional development program. Detailed case studies show how these principles can be applied at the district level and highlight the opportunities and challenges involved in implementing these programs in different contexts. The book makes a powerful case for using new teacher mentoring as an entry point for creating a strong professional culture with a shared, aligned understanding of high-quality teaching. Education Practices/Teacher Preparation/Induction and Mentoring http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=11351 Thu, 28 Jul 2011 15:39:24 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11351 http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11296 Nobel Prize winning physicist and Associate Director of Science for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Dr. Carl Wieman, delivered the joint plenary for the UTeach Institute - NMSI Conference and the Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC) Conference, both held May, 2011 in Austin, TX. Wieman highlighted the need for improved science instruction nationwide and discussed what we have learned from research on effective instructional strategies in college physics classrooms. Education Practices/Teacher Preparation/Research http://www.ptec.org/bulletinboard/Thread.cfm?ID=11296 Wed, 06 Jul 2011 13:06:29 EST http://www.ptec.org/items/detail.cfm?ID=11296