AAPT: Improving the Quality of Physics Education by Supporting the Recruitment and Development of Teachers

Kelsey Sheridan, American Association of Physics Teachers

The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) is a membership organization dedicated to “enhancing the understanding and appreciation of physics through teaching.”¹ AAPT members primarily teach at the high school, two-year college, or university level. Additionally, some of our members are physics education researchers who develop evidence-based resources to improve education at each of these levels. The strength of AAPT lies in the nexus of these communities to provide teachers with a comprehensive understanding of physics education. By informing your pre-service teachers about AAPT, you can introduce them to the myriad of resources available to them both now and when they are in their own classrooms.

In order to fuel this vibrant community and fulfill its mission, AAPT takes a multipronged approach to recruiting, training, and supporting physics teachers throughout their careers. AAPT provides teacher recruitment tools to university physics departments that combat misconceptions about teaching, funds early career teachers and physics majors who intend to teach in secondary schools, and coordinates teacher mentoring programs. AAPT also disseminates physics education research through its journals, The Physics Teacher and American Journal of Physics, and the Physport website. Finally, AAPT develops and publishes curricular resources, and promotes opportunities for teacher leadership that allow teachers to advance professionally without leaving the classroom. In this way, AAPT both builds a pipeline to bring physics majors into physics classrooms and sustains their impact by providing curricular resources, financial support, and promoting partnerships among physics teachers across academic levels.

Teacher preparation

With funding from the National Science Foundation, AAPT and many other STEM-education groups such as APS, American Chemical Society, Mathematical Association of America, and the Colorado School of Mines are developing the “Get the Facts Out” campaign. Once launched, the campaign will provide data, guidelines, and modifiable resources to support faculty as they talk with their students and colleagues about a career in secondary physics teaching.

Once an interest in teaching is established and nurtured in physics majors, they need to learn and practice the pedagogy and behavior-management strategies used by great teachers. PhysTEC, another partnership between AAPT and APS, works with more than 300 institutions dedicated to improving and promoting physics teacher education across the United States. PhysTEC institutions have identified key components of programs that successfully recruit and train physics majors to teach and thrive in K-12 classrooms². AAPT helps to build a network where members of these institutions can continue to identify and share best practices for recruiting and supporting strong physics teachers.

On an individual level, AAPT supports future physics teachers with the Barbara Lotze Scholarship, a financial award for undergraduates in physics teacher preparation programs.

Teacher supports

AAPT has a wide range of resources to support teachers in their daily work. Because about eighty percent of physics teachers are the only physics teacher at their school, building a professional learning community where teachers can compare data, and subsequently design and implement interventions is incredibly difficult.³ Physport addresses this reality through the creation and upkeep of an online database of research-based teaching methods and materials, assessments, norm-referenced data, and targeted intervention strategies that are all specific to physics.

Compadre.org is a library of curated and vetted lesson resources. AAPT’s newest lesson resource is the Digi Kits collection. Digi Kits include innovative hands-on lesson plans that are aligned with the Next Generation Science Standards⁴ and supported by digital simulations, animations, and videos to extend your students’ thinking beyond the lab activity. These curricular resources help teachers quickly plan strong lessons that they can confidently execute with success.

Through programs like the AIP/AAPT Master Teacher Policy Fellowship, teacher leaders receive support and training to work on advocacy issues that matter to their communities. Creating a network of teacher leaders helps to address a multitude of challenges inherent to the difficulties of sustaining qualified physics teaching and equitable physics learning opportunities for students in a complex educational system.

In providing strategic resources and development opportunities to physics teacher preparation programs, pre-service teachers, and current teachers, AAPT hopes to positively impact the future of physics as a field through supporting physics educators today.

Kelsey Sheridan is the marketing coordinator for the American Association of Physics Teachers. Prior to joining AAPT, Kelsey was a high school science teacher in Baltimore City, Maryland.

(Endnotes)

¹ http://aapt.org/aboutaapt/mission.cfm
² https://www.phystec.org
³ Casey Langer Tesfaye and Susan White, "High School Physics Teacher Preparation." February 2012. https://www.aip.org/sites/default/files/statistics/highschool/hs-teacherprep-09.pdf
⁴ http://www.nextgenscience.org/

Disclaimer – The articles and opinion pieces found in this issue of the APS Forum on Education Newsletter are not peer refereed and represent solely the views of the authors and not necessarily the views of the APS.