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Re: Teaching in America



Joe Heafner raised some points I would like to respond to.

(1) Concerning needing a degree in science to teach science.

I spoke too generally here. It is almost true in Ohio, and ends up being
true in many cases, that you get a degree in the area you intend to teach.
Ohio officially states it follows the guidelines established by the National
Science Teachers Association. Whether this is literally true is not clear,
but it is close. The NSTA guidelines in science include 32 semester hours
in the primary field, distributed over both lower and upper level courses.
So for physics this would be 32 semester hours of physics. Then NSTA
recommends 16 additional semester hours in the other areas of science which
would be chemistry, life science, earth/space science. This means a physics
teacher would need 48 semester hours of science, 32 of which are in physics.
Math does not count as part of these. The student would generally take at
least of year of calculus to meet prerequisites for the physics courses.

A college/university has to submit their program of courses to the State of
Ohio Department of Education for approval. If the proposed program is not
close to the above guidelines, it will not be approved. But if the program
is approved by the state, whether it is called a "major" at the college is
up to the college to decide.

So... does the program described above constitute a BA/BS physics major?
Some schools it does and some schools it does not. At Bluffton College it
does, because we require the physics education students take the same
courses the physics majors take. In other words, a college could
conceivably create 32 hours of physics courses specifically for teachers,
and these might not be considered high-enough level for a physics degree.
Perhaps some large universities do that, but small places like my school
can't afford two tracks of physics. Aside from general-education physics,
we only teach calculus-based general physics. So that's the beginning
course the physics teachers and physics majors both have to take.

So, at my school, all physics teachers earn a BA in physics... and this is
also true for chemistry, biology, math, English, etc. This is not uncommon
in Ohio... but it is not literally required. So I originally did not state
the situation correctly. Also note that the NSTA guidelines have been
adopted by many states, but not all. But any state following NSTA
guidelines would put the physics teacher through 48 semester hours of
science of which 32 are physics. This number of credit hours would
typically be sufficient for a BA/BS in physics, but to make that true the
courses would have to be distributed in an appropriate manner.

(2) Concerning whether community-college graduates succeed after transfering
to 4-year programs.

I said they meet with varying success, and there is clearly nothing
derrogatory nor incorrect with that statement. It depends on what type of
courses the community college has (subject matter), at what level the
courses are taught, and which courses the student actually chooses. Here
are some examples.

In my area (of the country) it is rare for a community college to offer
calculus-based physics, but some do. Unfortunately we have had some
students take algebra and trig as their math courses, and algebra-trig-based
physics, and general-education-level chemistry, in a community college, then
try to transfer into Bluffton College as junior-level physics majors.
Sorry... it isn't going to work. They arrive here essentially needing to
start from the beginning as far as science and calculus is concerned.

On the other hand, we have had some students transfer here having had a good
calculus preparation and a calculus-based physics preparation in a community
college. They do okay here, although our labs can surprise them because
some community colleges offer limited lab experience.

We have had significant problems with students starting a "computer science"
program at a community college and wanting to finish computer science here.
I put computer science in quotation marks because they didn't really take
computer science at the community college even though the college called it
that. They took courses in Excel, Access, and PowerPoint and maybe also
took some computer tech courses that had them hook some network stuff
together or hook up a printer, or install some software, etc. It is not
uncommon for these students to arrive here stating they want to complete a
computer science degree and they have never written a computer program in
their life. They take our first programming course in C++ and fail
miserably, and complain, "I didn't know this was what computer science was
all about."

(3) Concerning needing a Ph.D. etc. for college-level teaching, and whether
branch campuses have similar faculty requirements as main campuses.

I guess there is no law in Ohio that requires a person have a Ph.D. to teach
in a public or private college, but it would be extremely rare for a person
to be hired in science without a Ph.D. So the requirement is de facto as
opposed to law. We would never hire a person here without a Ph.D. If we
did, they would be ineligible for tenure. I think we have had only two
non-Ph.D. faculty in the natural sciences for the history of the college
(which dates from 1900) and the most recent left in about 1970. Everyone
since 1970 has had a Ph.D.

Ohio State University has several branch campuses. One is in Lima, OH which
is 20 miles from here. The main campus is in Columbus. Some of our faculty
teach or have taught at OSU-Lima and some have spouses that teach there. It
is my understanding their hiring is done through Columbus, and the Ph.D. is
required. The faculty in all areas are expected to do research and will not
get tenure without it. All courses offered at the branch campuses are
supposed to be as identical as possible to the main campus. A student
should be able to start a physics BS in Lima and move seamlessly to Columbus
for the last two years. It should make no difference whether the student
takes PHY 131 in Lima or Columbus. They both use the same textbook, both
perform the same labs using the same equipment, both receive instruction by
Ph.D. professors who are also doing active research.

As far as I know, that's the way it is in Ohio.


Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D. Phone/voice-mail: 419-358-3270
Professor of Chemistry & Physics FAX: 419-358-3323
Chairman, Science Department E-Mail edmiston@bluffton.edu
Bluffton College
280 West College Avenue
Bluffton, OH 45817