New Faculty Workshops
The American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), in conjunction with the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and the American Physical Society (APS), holds a workshop for new physics and astronomy faculty members each year at the American Center for Physics. Now in its 14th year, this semi-annual conference helps new faculty understand how students learn physics and astronomy and suggests how this information can impact a new professor's teaching methods. The workshop is intended for faculty in the first few years of their initial tenure-track appointment at a four-year college or university. The 2009 fall workshop will be held November 12-15, 2009 at ACP.
Workshop for New Physics and Astronomy Faculty, American Center for Physics,
June 25-28, 2008. Seated, front, right: Workshop Chair Robert Hillborn.
This discussion format and small breakout groups of the workshop permit the participants to exchange ideas with one another and with leading innovators in physics and astronomy education. View the June 2009 Program. We invite you to nominate your recently hired faculty to attend the Workshop. By “recently hired” we mean faculty in the first few years of their initial tenure-track appointment. The ideal nominee would be one who has been teaching for a year or two and who is beginning to realize that good teaching may be a more difficult enterprise than he or she originally thought. We are confident that your new faculty will use what they learn for the improvement of instruction at your institution. By providing examples of well-tested paths to successful teaching, the Workshop will allow your nominee greater time to focus on research and scholarship, thereby offering benefits to the individual and to your department. This series of workshops has substantially contributed to the national effort to improve physics and astronomy instruction. It is not our goal to turn new faculty into specialists in pedagogy or educational methodology. Instead, we will acquaint them with a small number of teaching techniques that have been shown to be effective in a wide variety of institutions and course levels. We will also schedule follow-up sessions at regular meetings of the APS, AAPT and AAS.
Nomination Information
Department chairs should nominate their new faculty for them to attend the workshop. The nominating department is responsible for all travel expenses to and from the American Center for Physics. This program is supported by the National Science Foundation, which pays all local expenses connected with the Workshop, including housing and meals for the participants. The only cost to participants is transportation to the American Center for Physics. Nominations for fall 2009 workshop begin late August 2009.
New Faculty Workshop Reunion
A reunion for 45 faculty members who attended the New Faculty Workshops between 1996 and 2008 was held at the Weston Convention Center on March 15, 2009. The program is available (in pdf format). The entire cost of attendance including travel, housing and meals was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.
