Physics teachers: we need to focus on the big picture, so please
considering forwarding this to physics colleagues -- and to science
policy makers, if you know any.
-- Jane Jackson, ASU
T-TEP 2010:
Transforming the Preparation of Physics Teachers: A Call to Action
In February 2010, the National Task Force on Teacher Education in
Physics (T-TEP) made a call to action by stating:
"Except for a handful of isolated pockets of excellence, the
national system of preparing physics teachers is largely inefficient,
mostly incoherent, and massively unprepared to deal with the current
and future needs of the nation's students. Physics departments,
schools of education, university administrators, school systems,
state agencies, the federal government, as well as business and
foundations, have indispensable collaborative roles to play so that
every high school student has the opportunity to learn physics with a
qualified teacher." (page 2.)
In the T-TEP report synopsis, the Task Force provided national and
international contexts for the need to reformulate physics teacher
preparation and development. They noted among the findings the
following:
* a national need for better-prepared physics teachers.
While 23,000 physics teachers serve in 20,000 high schools, only
1/3 of these teachers have degrees in physics or physics teaching.
While 1,200 openings exist each year for physics teachers, 800 of
these positions are filled by teachers who are typically
under-prepared to teach physics.
* a national need for better middle school and early high school science.
U.S. students arrive in high school science classes behind their
counterparts in other industrialized nations. In the 2006 Program
for International Student Assessment (PISA), U.S. 15-year-old
students' average science literacy score was in the bottom third of
participating OECD nations.
* economic implications if we fail to act.
As of 2003, a quarter of all Physics/Astronomy BS degrees and
nearly half of physics Ph.D.s are earned by foreign-born recipients.
During the intervening years, these fractions have likely increased.
A National Science Board task force noted that "global competition
for S&E talent is intensifying, such that the United States may not
be able to rely on the international S&E labor market to fill unmet
skill needs." An effective precollege physics education is
indispensable in preparing U.S. students for global competition.
* unequal opportunities to learn physics.
In addition to impacting negatively the nation's economy and
security, inadequate science education threatens the foundation of
democracy, as our educational system fails to provide members of
racial and ethnic minorities and the poor with knowledge and skills
they will require to participate in crucial social decisions of
ever-increasing scientific and technological complexity.
For instance, on the 2005 eighth grade National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP), in science the achievement gaps between
low-poverty and high-poverty students were roughly equivalent to
three years of learning. High poverty high schools are more likely
not to offer physics at all.
* a national need for better prepared novice physics teachers.
The overwhelming majority of students arrive in college without
deep understanding of foundational ideas in physics, such as Newton's
laws of motion. Of course there are counterexamples - many high
school physics teachers have a profoundly positive effect on their
students' understanding and enjoyment of physics. The challenge is to
identify the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of exemplars and
build physics teacher education programs that develop these qualities.
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PHYSICS COMMUNITY.
The state of high school physics ultimately affects the health of
the physics profession. A plausible causal chain connects students
who receive sub-optimal physics instruction in high school with a
decreasing fraction of physics majors in college, which in turn
affects physics department size and ability to attract U.S. physics
graduate students. Public perceptions of the efficacy of physics as
an enterprise also affect public funding for science research and
university budget allocations for science programs.
For members of the physics community, perhaps the most alarming
prospect is that of a citizenry that fails to appreciate physics as a
liberal arts discipline - its unique way of knowing and its unique
approach to satisfying and stimulating curiosity about the natural
world. Members of the physics community, particularly physics
departments, need to recognize what they stand to gain by a
transformed physics teacher professional preparation system and what
they stand to lose by preserving the status quo.
The National Task Force is jointly sponsored by the AAPT, the
American Institute of Physics, and the American Physical Society.
To download this report, visit http://www.ptec.org/webdocs/TaskForce.cfm
Click on "Report Synopsis".
[For in-service teacher development, the Task Force considers Arizona
State University as one of the isolated pockets of excellence.
http://modeling.asu.edu/MNS/MNS.html .
See recommendations 4 and 13 for future work that must be done in
teacher development/enhancement.]