Teacher Preparation Section

John Stewart, University of Arkansas

This edition of the Teacher Preparation Section features a description of an exciting new resource to bring research vetted pedagogical methods into the physics classroom. Rachel Scherr and Renee Michelle Goertzen will describe the Periscope Project. This project can be used to instruct faculty, pre-service, and in-service teachers in physics education research developed instructional methods and important issues in the teaching of physics. It features classroom video of real implementations of enhanced teaching methods along with transcripts and discussions of the methods.

Laurie McNeil of the University of Carolina – Chapel Hill will discuss the challenges of sustaining a teacher preparation program at a major research university. UNC was one of the primary funded PhysTEC sites and Laurie offers valuable insight into the need to work with the upper administration and the challenges of maintaining class offerings for often small cohorts of physics teachers.

With the next issue, the Teacher Preparation Section will be edited by Alma Robinson of Virginia Tech. It has been a great honor to bring eight years of articles about the challenges and rewards of physics teacher preparation to the readers of this newsletter.

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.