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Re: AAPT Vision Process



I do not understand why these issues are considered "critical". We have
a plethora of "urban legends' about the state of physics in our school
system, but how about some hard data. How does one go about
identifying the problems that we should confront?

We definitely do not want to become a lobbying organization because that
would affect our tax-free status.
Regards,
Jack

Adam was by constitution and proclivity a scientist; I was the same, and
we loved to call ourselves by that great name...Our first memorable
scientific discovery was the law that water and like fluids run downhill,
not up.
Mark Twain, <Extract from Eve's Autobiography>

On Tue, 1 Aug 2000, Daniel L. MacIsaac wrote:

Announcement of process and a call for reflection to all AAPT members

The AAPT Executive Board has asked me to inform electronic
list-reading members that the Association has started a planning
process to define critical issues for AAPT's future (see the latest
_AAPT Announcer_, 30(2) p8, Summer 2000). The Board has
started to develop and refine a vision statement and categories of
critical issues for the association and will shortly call for electronic
feedback on their work. To date the following DRAFT statement of
ideas has been prepared:
BEGIN QUOTE

A Draft Vision Statement:
AAPT will be recognized as the leader in physics education

The Working AAPT Mission is:
To enhance the understanding and appreciation of physics
through teaching

Three Critical Issues:
Increase AAPT's outreach to and impact on physics teachers
Increase the diversity and number of physics teachers and students
Improve the pedagogical skills and content knowledge of teachers
of physics at all levels

END QUOTE
Dan's Interpretation:

These statements will be reworked after member input and will form
the central core of a set of principles that will guide AAPT practices for
the coming 3-5 years. From the final version of this core of principles,
decisions will be made regarding continuing, discontinuing, establishing
or refusing to establish future initiatives. AAPT needs a meterstick to
help make a decision on what to do or not to do with limited resources,
and the final form of these principles will be that meterstick. These
principles are vague, but will be used eventually to set action plans with
specific action items that will affect everything the association does.

Recently the NSTA underwent this visioning process, and as a result they
have greatly expanded their political activity, formulating policy positions
about science teaching, tracking US legislation through Washington,
encouraging members to lobby Congress, hiring staff to manage this etc. In
addition, I believe there are things NSTA did before they have decided are
now of lesser importance. This chance to refocus or redirect the AAPT
will result in policy level changes akin to the decision to politicize NSTA
activity.

AAPT needs to hear from YOU about what YOU want the association to do.
What do you think of the above Vision, Mission and Critical Issue
statements?
What programs and services is the AAPT doing well now?
What should be retained? What should be discarded?
What new directions should AAPT take?

Please take some time to think about these issues now, and to discuss
them on PHYS-L <http://purcell.phy.nau.edu/phys-l> or the other
AAPT-related forums.

AAPT members will shortly be asked to comment on these via mass emailings,
the Announcer and the journals. Web pages will also be set up for this
purpose. You should expect to be asked for your comments on this
process shortly, and I encourage you to reflect upon this matter.

Dan M

Dan MacIsaac, Assistant Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Northern AZ Univ
danmac@nau.edu http://purcell.phy.nau.edu PHYS-L list owner