Forum on Education of The American Physical Society
Spring 2006 Newsletter
 A Note from the Teacher Preparation Section Editor Chance Hoellwarth In the last few issues, we have made the case that future physics teachers have different needs than typical physics majors. In the summer newsletter, McDermott, Heron, and Shaffer made the case that K-12 teachers need special courses, in addition to their content courses, that address their special needs. Then in the fall issue, we heard from four institutions that not only designed special courses for future teachers, but also designed special programs for their future teachers. This month I would like to continue in that vein and share with you two more programs designed especially for future physics teachers. Ed van den Berg will tell us about a teacher preparation program that he helped develop at the University of San Carlos (located in the Philippines), which highlights the fact that many of the features we heard about last issue (specially designed programs, recruitment, etc.) are important and transferable, even to other countries. Dan MacIsaac will tell us about alternative certification, which refers to the re-certification of teachers from different disciplines and/or people making career changes into teaching from technical fields, and describe the program at the State University of New York (SUNY)-Buffalo State College designed especially for this group. You may not have heard anything about alternative certification, but the group of people interested in it have the potential to become new physics teachers At any rate, the program itself has features that might work at your institution. |