In his recent Physhare post titled "Solving H.S. Physics teacher
shortage?" Herb Gottlieb (2003) . . .[this cryptic notation means
that Gottlieb's complete post is only a click away - just go to the
REFERENCES below, find "Gottlieb, H.H. 2003", and click on the
indicated URL] . . . wrote:
"There is a current shortage of qualified high school physics
teachers now. This shortage will become much more acute during the
next 10 years unless something is done about it pretty soon. How
about some practical suggestions from those on this list-serve?"
Herb's post initiated a multi-post Physhare thread, which can be
accessed by going to the Physhare search engine
<http://lists.psu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S1=physhare> and typing
"solving h" (without the quotes) into the "Subject" slot to obtain 19
hits as of 3 Mar 2003 11:58:00-0800.
On that thread Marty Weiss discussed a "glimmer of hope in the new
teacher prep program" NEST (Network of Educators in Science and
Technology) at MIT <http://web.mit.edu/cpse/alums/nest.html>:
"[MIT] has engaged some of the senior faculty to encourage MIT
students to enter teaching as a career. . . [NEST] has the active
participation of some of the highest ranking members of the faculty.
. . who come out each summer to work with us when we run our week
long program for science, math, and technology teachers from all over
the country. By
association with over seven hundred of the greatest teachers in the
world . . . . these professors have seen and have heard about the
state of education directly from *the horse's mouth*, i.e. we the
teachers. Many of our members have received national recognition and
awards including several teachers of the year for their states."
In an earlier post (Hake 2003a), I indicated seven long-range steps
that might be taken to reduce the ruinous systemic shortage of
EFFECTIVE K-12 science/math teachers as set forth in Hake (2002). The
same steps would, of course, help to alleviate the calamitous
shortage of EFFECTIVE high-school physics teachers. MIT's NEST is in
accord with my fifth suggested step:
"Support the research, development, and operation of programs to
enhance the pedagogical skills and content knowledge of in-service
P-12 science/math teachers. . . (P = Preschool).. . . For a
hot-linked list of 25 such programs in physics see Hake (2000,
Section IIIC). See also the resources at the APS "Education and
Outreach" website <http://www.aps.org/educ/>." NEST
<http://web.mit.edu/cpse/alums/nest.html> seems to have been omitted
from both those sites.
BTW, I prefer the adjective "EFFECTIVE" to "qualified." A teacher may
be "qualified" in the sense of fulfilling certain bureaucratic
mandates, and yet be grossly ineffective in teaching. Here
"ineffective in teaching" means not promoting substantive learning by
the average student.
Hake, R.R. 2000. "Is it Finally Time to Implement Curriculum S?" AAPT
Announcer 30(4), 103; online as ref. 13 at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>. A large number of references
relevant to the reform of P-16 education is given on pages 55-99.
Hake, R.R. 2002. "Physics First: Opening Battle in the War on
Science/Math Illiteracy?" Submitted to the American Journal of
Physics on 27 June 2002; online at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/>.
Hake, R.R. 2003a. "Shortage of effective science/math teachers (was
Shortage of qualified physics teachers)", post to Physhare, Phys-L,
PhysLrnR, AP-Physics, Math-Teach, and POD of 17 Feb 2003
13:51:17-0800; online at
<http://lists.nau.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0302&L=phys-l&O=D&P=36603>.
See Hake (2003b) for my response to Herb Gottlieb's questions and
comments.