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A strong STEM education is essential for securing knowledgeable workers and informed citizens for today’s and tomorrow’s highly technical world.
A strong STEM education starts in our schools and depends on a large supply of highly qualified teachers.
Physics stands at the base of STEM education.
Ensuring that we have a highly prepared and ready "workforce" of pre-college science and physics teachers requires the consistent and joint efforts of many sectors in our community: Universities, school districts, corporations and foundations, and the federal, state and local governments. Each has a crucial role to play; collaboration among the various groups is critical to our collective ability to recruit, prepare and retain teachers of physics. With a serious shortage, high attrition, and anticipated high rates of retirement, the crisis needs our immediate and creative attention.
Leaders in teacher education within the sciences from business, schools and universities will address key questions:
- What is expected of a school district, a particular school, or an assistant principal regarding leadership, mentorship, new-teacher induction, support and in-service opportunities?
- What can universities successfully do to attract students to teacher education in physics? Who is and should be responsible for these programs? What are the hallmarks of a strong district, university or state-university partnership?
- What should the role of industry be in advancing teacher education? What are some successful examples of corporate involvement?
- What have been the effect of federal legislation and the role of government (federal/state) in the area of teacher preparation: Funding/assessment/certification issues?
New data will be unveiled at the Symposium about teacher preparation and readiness by the American Institute of Physics.
Featuring
Special AAPT Award Presentations
Speakers
- Michael Lach, Officer of Teaching and Learning, Chicago Public Schools
- Maura Banta, Director, Transition to Teaching Program; IBM (invited)
- Patrick Callahan, Executive Director, CalTeach; University of California Office of the President
- Marilyn Decker, Senior Program Director, Science; Boston Public Schools (invited)
- Patrick Mulvey, Statistical Research Center, American Institute of Physics
The Symposium is organized by the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and sponsored in part by the PhysTEC Project, an NSF-funded partnership of APS, AAPT and AIP.
