GRADUATE TEACHING ASSISTANT TRAINING
E. Leonard Jossem
The education of physics graduate students has become the subject
of increasing attention and concern in the physics community. Evidence
for this is provided, for example, by the Career Workshops1 held at
the APS-AAPT meeting (April 1994) and by the Joint Symposium of the
APS Committee on Education and the AAPT Committee on Graduate Education
entitled "Expanding your Horizons with a Ph.D. in Physics"2 at that
meeting. Publications in Physics Today and elsewhere3 also attest to
concerns in the physics community about current employment problems,
the desirability of changes in the physics graduate curriculum and,
more generally, about the overall relations between the physics community
and society.
The interest of society in the role of graduate students as teaching
assistants found expression recently in the US Congress in Title V
of H.R. 3254, the National Science Foundation Authorization Act of
1994. Section 501: `Requirement for Funding' begins as follows:
"Each educational institution that receives a research grant from
the Foundation in fiscal year 1995 shall, as a condition of receiving
such grant, provide to the Foundation the following information on
its undergraduate mathematics, science, and engineering activities:
(1) A description of teacher training programs mandated by the institution
for teaching assistants, including the number of training hours required. "
Seven other categories of information about institutional policies
concerned with undergraduate education are required by the bill, but
information on what is being done to prepare graduate students to teach
undergraduate classes has pride of place on the list. HR. 3254 is awaiting
action by the Senate, which may adopt this (or its own) approach, but
final passage of the NSF Authorization Act is expected some time in
the Fall of 1994.4
"One never steps twice into the same river", and the details of the
concerns of today are different from those of a generation ago, but
this is not the first time the physics community in the US has been
obliged to give serious consideration to the nature and character of
the education it provides for its students.5 It is, in fact, a continuing
responsibility in response to which each generation must find its own
appropriate courses of action.
In the past decade or so, several developments have begun to influence
the situation. One is the increasing public recognition of the problems
in our educational systems, including the problems with the math and
science literacy of the general population. Universities as well as
the primary and secondary school systems have come under increasing
pressure to improve the quality of education they provide to their
students. Another factor is the increasing recognition of the need
for a better system of mentoring for graduate students and new faculty
in physics departments. A third is the increasing recognition of research
in physics education as a legitimate, and indeed a necessary, activity
within university physics departments. The Topical Conference for Physics
Department Chairs sponsored by the American Association of Physics
Teachers and The American Physical Society in April of 1993, entitled
`Physics Departments in the 1990's' (6) had sessions addressing all
of these matters.
In particular, the session on mentoring graduate teaching assistants
presented a sampling of programs for new graduate students at various
universities. Those represented were Cornell, Minnesota, North Carolina
State, and The Ohio State University. The programs run in length from
a few days to a full summer session in the case of Ohio State. All
have follow-ups during the academic year. Many other physics departments
have or are planning such programs.
Of major importance for such programs is the growing body of serious
research in physics education, the results of which are increasingly
being incorporated into programs for the education of graduate teaching
assistants. Much yet needs to be done, however, and the process of
assessing and improving instructional programs in physics at all levels
calls for the continuing interest and active support of all members
of the physics community.
1. A workshop on Career Choices in Physics was hosted by the AIP
Career Planning and Placement Division on 17 April 1994. Bull. Am.
Phys. Soc. 39 (2), 971 (1994)
2. Session C'5 Bull. Am. Phys. Soc. 39(2), 1050 (1994)
3. "Physics, Community, and the Crisis in Physical Theory", Silvan
S. Schweber, Physics Today 46(11), 34 (1993); "Physics Round Table:
Reinventing Our Future", Physics Today 47(3), 30, (1994); "America's
Academic Future: A Report of the Presidential Young Investigator Colloquium
on US Engineering, Mathematics, and Science Education for the Year
2010 and Beyond", National Science Foundation Publication NSF 91-150
4. Reported in FYI #70 19 May 1994 Richard M. Jones, Public Information
Division, American Institute of Physics
5. See, for example, The Transition in Physics Doctoral Employment
1960-1990: Report of the Physics Manpower Panel of The American Physical
Society 1979. The American Physical Society ISBN 0-88318-257-2
6. Physics Departments in the 1990's American Association of Physics
Teachers & The American Physical Society ISBN: 0- 917853-52-0 Available
as TC-07 from the American Association of Physics Teachers One Physics
Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740- 3845
E. Leonard Jossem is Professor Emeritus at Ohio State University
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