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Re: your mail; Getting Started on A Local Physics Alliance

Mark,

We have found that Saturday mornings, 9 A.M. to noon, is a good time for
high-school teacher workshops. Weekday evenings do not work as well.

The most successful workshops, in terms of attendance, for us have been
those featuring a "make-and take" activity. These involve between 1 and 3
hours of construction of a demo or two. Also of substantial value is a
one-hour period devoted to "Sharing". These are unscheduled, short
presentations of demos, suggestions on labs, ideas on the classroom
presentation of a particular topic, or a comment on a general pedagogical
matter.

At least once a year we have an hour titled "Is the Subject of Physics a
Laughing Matter?" The answer is yes. Everyone is invited to bring their
best jokes.

Once in a while, the workshop can be held at a high-lab, where an
experiment or two can be shown. The use of Calculator-Based LAbs is a good
topic.

I feel strongly that physics pedagogy should not be neglected, and should
get equal attention with topic-presentation. How do we encourage peer
instruction? Are we teaching students to just memorize procedures? That
ability to plug numbers into a formula means you understand the subject?
What should be the balance between depth and breadth?

Our experience is that attendance runs between 5% to 15% of the mailing
list. Compiling an e-mail list certainly saves time, compared to direct
mailing; but we still do the latter. A mailing to principals in August has
been helpful to us. Asked for is the name of the teacher(s) and their
e-mail address.

A last point - don't burn yourself out doing this. If three or four
educators in your area turn out to be interested and able to contribute,
it might be appropriate be have six workshops per school year. If less,
make the number of workshops corresponding less. A good agenda is not
indespensable - just getting teachers together to talk to each other is a
substantial contribution.

Don't forget to contact college or university people, if there is a
college or university in your area. A University Physics Department not
contributing is a department falling down on its job.

Allen Miller
Syracuse University

On Thu, 1 Apr 1999, Mark Lattery wrote:

Physharers,

I am interested in starting a special-interest group for physics teaching
in my area. I would like to attract local high school physics teachers and
middle school science teachers, seek funding for special speakers and
donuts, and maybe run a quarterly newsletter. If you have been down this
road before, can you give me any suggestions? Do you know of physics
teaching sigs in your area? What made the meetings successful?

ML

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mark J. Lattery Phone: (920)424-7105
Assistant Professor of Physics Dept: (920)424-4433
Department of Physics and Astronomy Fax: (920)424-0894
University of Wisconsin Oshkosh Email: lattery@uwosh.edu
800 Algoma Boulevard
Oshkosh, Wisconsin 54901-8644

"Physical concepts are the free creations of the human mind and
are not, however it may seem, uniquely determined by the external world."

--Einstein in "The Evolution of Physics" (1938)