Reflections on the Road Less Traveled: Physicist to High School Physics Teacher

1. Reflections on the Road Less Traveled:Physicist to High School Physics Teacher By Christopher Olszewski, Ph.D.SUNY-Buffalo State College This project was supported in part by NSF DUE- 0302098 (STEMTP, and partially satisfied requirements for PHY690: Masters Project Overview In this paper, I describe changes to my ideas of good teaching as a result of my participation in an alternate teacher certification program for high school physics teachers at the State University of New York (SUNY) - Buffalo State College. My perspective is that of a career-changing professional after 20 years in the telecommunications industry, but is unusual in that I already have my doctorate in physics. My initial ideas of good teaching were fairly traditional and based on my own experiences as a student, but my ideas of good teaching were changed radically by my participation in the alternative certification program. The heart of the program is a summer academy suite of modeling courses and has additional components of an introduction to physics education research, educational courses, and field work. Key elements of my current ideas of good physics teaching are to provide different kinds of knowledge about a topic to students (e.g., kinesthetic, visual, mathematical, etc.); to encourage students to verbalize their thinking; and to employ open-ended and unstructured laboratory activities. These and other changes to my conceptions can be partially traced to the themes of the program which include student-mode experiences, extensive exposure to pedagogical content knowledge, a marked student-centric emphasis, strong promotion of student discourse and white boarding, and related guided reflections on learning and teaching during the program’s summer academy courses. Table 2. 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