As far as I can tell from Sacramento AAPT edition of the AAPT
Announcer, there will be NO session on the California Hands-On vs
Direct Instruction Battle - just my lone paper "Direct Science
Instruction Suffers a Setback in California or Does It?" [Hake
(2004a)].
On 30 January 2004, Tom Foster wrote to me: "As chair of the Labs
Committee of AAPT we are trying to put together a session for
Sacramento on the new California law which has been so [much
discussed] on many listservs."
I had thought from Tom's email that the AAPT realized the importance
of that battle for science instruction nationwide, but I was
evidently wrong.
Among those who DID understand the importance were [quoted from Hake
(2004b); see that article for the references]:
(a) California state legislators [Goldberg (2003)];
(b) the "California Science Teachers Association" [Janulaw (2004a,b)];
(c) the "San Diego Science Alliance" [Winter (2004)];
(d) the "National Academy of Sciences" acting in concert with the "National
Science Teachers Association" [Alberts & Wheeler (2004)];
(e) the "National Science Teachers Association" [Wheeler (2004)];
(f) leaders of Genentech, Intel, Bechtel, Pixar, Lucasfilm, Adobe Systems; the
Presidents of the University of California, Stanford, and the California
Institute of Technology; and all 10 Chancellors of the University of
California [Levinson et al. (2004)].
(f) Richard Stephens (2004), president of the Boeing Company.
THE AAPT SEEMS TO BE ABSENT FROM THE ROLL OF THOSE ADVOCATING REFOM
IN K-8 SCIENCE EDUCATION.
Hake, R.R. 2004a. "Direct Science Instruction Suffers a Setback in
California or Does It?" 2004. AAPT Announcer 34(2): 177 (2004),
Session FF Wednesday August 4. Note that footnote #1 as it appears in
the "Announcer" was erroneously transformed by the editors from the
correctly transmitted footnote: "Online as ref. 33 at
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>"[where ref. 33 is Hake
(2004b)].
Hake, R.R. 2004b. "Direct Science Instruction Suffers a Setback in
California - Or Does It?" 11 April, contributed to the 129th National
AAPT meeting in Sacramento, CA, 1-5 August 2004; online as reference
33 at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>, or download directly as
a 420
kB pdf by clicking on
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/DirInstSetback-041104f.pdf>
[about 160 references and 180 hot-linked URL's]