Teaching physics matters
Multidisciplinary program crosses colleges to encourage physics students to teach
THOUGH TEACHING PHYSICS may not (quite) be rocket science, not all physics educators are created equal. Nor are they created in adequate numbers.
According to Theodore Hodapp, director of education and diversity for the American Physical Society (APS), only 1,200 new physics teachers enter the national pool annually. Of those, a mere 400 have a college major or minor in physics. To help avert a critical shortage of qualified physics teachers, APS banded with the American Association of Physics Teachers and the American Institute of Physics to create the Physics Teacher Education Coalition, or PhysTEC. Through partnerships with six colleges and universities nationwide, including the University of Minnesota (an additional six have completed their grants), the program encourages undergraduates to become high school physics teachers and supports early-career educators with training and mentoring.
Alumna Nancy Bresnahan applies her passion for teaching and physics
as teacher-in-residence for PhysTEC and member of the visiting
performance troupe Physics Force, shown at left.
The University of Minnesota garnered a three-year PhysTEC grant in August 2007, joining the pedagogical expertise of the College of Education and Human Development with the content expertise of the Institute of Technology’s (IT) School of Physics and Astronomy. Though the program is housed in IT, the value placed on preparing students in how to teach, as well as what to teach, is a hallmark of CEHD’s science education program.
“The physics department values research, but PhysTEC will help reform the culture to add a healthy respect for teaching as a possible career path,” says Nancy Bresnahan (M.Ed. ’91), a veteran physics teacher of 26 years. Bresnahan was hired from the Hopkins school district to serve as a teacher-in-residence—one of the key components of PhysTEC—for the 2007–2008 school year. Teachers-in-residence, sometimes known as master teachers, create connections between university physics departments, colleges of education, and K–12 systems. Bresnahan also taught physics to CEHD students in the elementary education program.
Leon Hsu, associate professor in the Department of Postsecondary Teaching and Learning, notes that being well-versed in science and comfortable in the classroom don’t always go hand in hand. “One of the stumbling blocks to [teacher] recruitment is that many people view teaching as an art and not a science. That can be daunting for science students,” he says. Hsu is a co-investigator on the PhysTEC grant, along with science education associate professor Fred Finley (curriculum and instruction), and three physics faculty members, including principal investigator professor Cynthia Cattell.
Building future teachers
To date, the University’s PhysTEC program has focused on recruiting physics students into teaching through outreach efforts that include the Physics Force troupe, led by Cattell and other physics professors, which travels to K–12 schools teaching students about science through slapstick and prop comedy. The Physics Force team also includes Bresnahan and a number of other CEHD alumni.
The main method of recruitment, however, involves PhysTEC’s learning assistants sub-program, which Bresnahan coordinates. Of the 13 students that participated in PhysTEC last year, 10 freshmen and sophomores were hired as paid learning assistants to support undergraduate physics classes this fall.
Nationally, an average of 15 percent of learning assistants have chosen to become physics teachers, according to Bresnahan. Statistics from APS’s PhysTEC Office show that institutions participating in the program have at least doubled the number of physics teachers that were educated over the course of the three years of funding.
“Every problem needs a variety of solutions,” Bresnahan notes. “That said, PhysTEC in one year has called attention to the importance of physics teaching.”
The future of PhysTEC
Next year, the learning assistants will be required to declare a major in physics, says Bresnahan. They must also enroll in CEHD’s DirecTrack to Teaching program, which exposes undergraduates to the culture and experience of teaching, and may ultimately speed their licensure process. Finley, an experienced science education professor, is investigating how DirecTrack and PhysTEC can align to support the development of physics educators.
And finally, the PhysTEC team is working to create programs to help reduce the high attrition rates among high school physics teachers—in Minnesota, about 58 percent leave within their first five years of teaching, according to the North Central Educational Research Laboratory. To address this critical shortage, incoming teacher-in-residence Jon Anderson (B.S. ’86, M.Ed. ’92) will develop a physics-teacher mentoring program. Anderson is an award-winning physics teacher at Centennial High School, Circle Pines, and a member of Physics Force.
“Students are more likely to be interested in teaching as a career if good teaching and best practices are modeled,” says Cattell.
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PHOTO: Courtesy of Physics Force