Thank you for inviting us to offer remarks at the opening of your conference. Unfortunately, my coauthor, Diandra Leslie-Pelecky was held up by personal issues and cannot join us. That means that I am going to give both parts of the talk … we’ll see how this goes since the brighter of the coauthors could not show up.

I am very pleased to be back in Texas (on such an auspicious day to Texans, Alamo Day, 166 years after the battle of the Alamo). It is a pleasure to see so many people, so many close friends. We are here to talk about one of the most important issues facing the physics, or the science community, preparing future teachers so that they are confident about their science and encouraged to teach science well and to pass along a positive attitude about science to their students.

Our Talk will be divided into six parts: (1) This Texas Conference; (2) a view from Jack’s Chair: changes and a building momentum; (3) the Nebraska Conference: one way of starting to change; (4) a view from the Plains: Lessons Learned from several projects at the University of Nebraska; (5) some large national efforts: PhysTEC as an example; and (6) Can we build something together?

Think of these as parts of a jigsaw puzzle. When put together they make more sense. The central and unifying topic is the science preparation of more and better teachers.

This is intended to be a “working conference:” there will be written outcomes disseminated as widely as appropriate. It is held at an institution that has a long history of preparing many teachers and preparing them well in the physical sciences. This institution remembers and lives in the traditions of people like Glenn Terrill, whose work many of us remember.

The questions for this conference are well formed:

1. What should pre-service teachers know and be able to do at the end of a physics course? (the questions of STANDARDS)
2. How do the needs of the pre-service teachers differ form those of the other students we teach in the physics department?
3. What is the role of the physics department at the two-year college and four year college/university in addressing the needs of future K-12 teachers?

The organizing committee would like to emerge with a consensual view and some recommendations with regard to these questions. I ask you NOT to underestimate the influence that you may have by acting collectively at a meeting like this one or representing a geographical region, like TEXAS.

First some personal notes: Jack’s view from his chair near Washington, DC:

There is a growing interest in the science community, and I think particularly among young (new) faculty members, about the importance of a broader set of issues dealing with education and public policy. The perceived position of science as an elite and protected patronage is diminishing brought home in rather abrupt fashion by spectacular political failures like the SSC played out here in Texas. Unfortunately, research funding is declining in the average department.

I recommend that you look at a guest editorial in The Physics Teacher, (Vol 40, March 2002) by Congressman Rush Holt, Democrat from New Jersey and formerly the Associate Director of the Princeton Plasma Laboratory. Rush Holt is one of our two United States Congressmen who are physicists, the other member is Vernon Ehlers, Republican from Michigan. It is important to note that on many Members of Congress have web pages upon which you will find a classroom of students. We will see if this trend persists into the future.

Rush Holt also delivered plenary remarks at the January AAPT meeting. He spoke eloquently about the need for scientists to reach out, embrace, and make welcome a much wider array of individuals. He suggested it was important to make “physics” more welcoming and more accessible to them. He remarked that being a rocket scientist is perceived to be exclusionary, arrogant, and elitist and that was detrimental to the scientist and the science.

The word accountability is growing larger and larger in the public lexicon. Federal agencies are asked to justify their expenditures to Congress. How do we justify curiosity driven research (or “discovery-oriented” in the new terminology)? Let me offer two quotations from John Marburger, Science Advisor to the President:

"I want to state clearly at this point that the administration values discovery-oriented science, despite its apparent impracticality, and aims to continue to support the grand quest for knowledge about the universe at the largest and the smallest scales."

“In view of this embarrassment of scientific riches, the processes of choice are paramount. Pushing back the ubiquitous frontier of complexity costs considerably less than similar progress at the receding frontiers of the large and the small. Consequently those who rely on big facilities like particle accelerators and space-borne telescopes bear a heavy responsibility to choose carefully, manage wisely, and maximize the quotient of discovery versus dollars.”

-John Marburger

I could go on for some time about this theme, but the important message is:
scientists should expect

1. To play a larger and broader (less isolated) role in society
2. To be prepared to justify to the taxpayer (and decision-makers) what that role is and why the taxpayer should pay for it

I want to turn my attention to a project that Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, Gayle Buck, and I collaborated on in the early part of 2000. As background, in the Spring of 1999, the AIP Governing Board passed a statement encouraging physics departments to take a more active role in teaching preparation. In December of 1999, the AIP Education Division mailed that statement to every department chair in the United States. Also work had begun on the professional society initiative that would become the Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC). (more about that later).

Diandra was talking about the need to do a “good” course for teachers at the University of Nebraska. She approached the task as she would any other piece of research.

(See the slides)

I hope that you will see some of the same outcomes from this meeting that we did from the Nebraska Conference.

An important issue that did not make its way into the Nebraska Conference was the role of the two-year colleges in the preparation of future teachers. I trust that this conference will do a better job of discussing this topic and including a more diverse group of participants.

Nebraska’s continued efforts lead to several local outcomes that are significant: a new Course for teachers; a continued emphasis within the Department; closer ties to other parts of the campus especially the College of Education; and continued development of the Math and Science Center. These lead to several important projects.

(See the slides)

National Projects

Let me broaden the perspective from Nebraska to a set of national interests and projects:

Let me offer some specific examples for good citizenship that directly serves science:

• AAPT Committee on Teacher Preparation
• PhysTEC
• 2002 Federal Budget:
  • No Child Left Behind and
  • Math and Science Partnerships

A Charge for This Meeting

Finally let’s turn to you, to your department, to your schools, to your science. What can a department do?

The physics department is the unit of responsibility for an academic physicist. Any change that is institutionalized over time will involve more than one or two heroes in the department.

What can you do?

All politics is local and all change turns out to be local. All reform or revitalization is local !!! The national story is a collection of stories, of successes and failures, in individual institutions, communities, colleges, universities, and schools. Without documentation, without outcomes that can be measured, without some systematic ways of engaging in planning and measuring change, we can make little progress.

You, as an individual, can make a big difference. Working together in this meeting, in Texas, and sharing your successes and failure you can make a difference. Working individually in your own department, with your colleagues in education, and with teachers in your community you can make a local difference.

This is an important topic and an important meeting. LET’S GO TO WORK!

This is a “working conference” sponsored by the Texas Sections of the American Association of Physics Teachers and the American Physical Society.

GENERAL MEETING INFORMATION

The conference will be held on Wednesday and Thursday, March 6 and 7, 2002 at Stephen F. Austin State University, in Nacogdoches, Texas. Leaders in physics education within Texas will gather to address the following questions:

1. What should pre-service teachers know and be able to do at the end of a physics course?
2. How do the needs of the pre-service teachers differ form those of the other students we teach in the physics department?
3. What is the role of the physics department at the two-year college and four year college/university in addressing the needs of future K-12 teachers?

The science education for our future K-12 teachers faces two challenges during the next few years. The adoption of national and state science standards have obligated our local school systems to provide K-12 students with improved science course content and an understanding of the process and context of science. In addition there is a predicted need of two million new teachers in our country within the next ten years. Scientific societies, including the American Institute of Physics, the American Physical Society, and the American Association of Physics Teachers are therefore urging the physics community to take an active role in improving the physics preparation of K-12 teachers. Such preparation involves the development of cooperative working relationships between physicists in universities and colleges and the individuals and groups involved in teaching physics to K-12 students.