Course Description

This course is intended to provide students with an opportunity to reflect on their school experience with their peers and supervisor so that they would be able to hear the relevant feedback from all to develop personal teaching styles and organizational abilities.

Course Goals

The focus of the course is to provide students with an opportunity for:

• familiarity with cognitive principles and guidelines for physics instruction
• developing a coherent and informed professional stance toward teaching physics using various instructional strategies
• familiarity with detailed lesson planning and its implementation
• develop organizational and instructional skills for effective physics teaching
• familiarity with being reflective and critical on other physics instructions

Expectations

In this class we will refine and develop what we know in a social setting, teaching physics at high school level. Your ideas and those of your fellow students are the basis of the meanings we will make from this class. Thus, this is not a lecture class and information cannot be simply obtained by “getting the notes” from a classmate. Therefore, attendance is expected and you are to be professional in your class participation. Professionalism includes, but is not limited to, such things as excellence in class assignments, constructive class participation, being a positive contributor to group work, taking advantage of opportunities to broaden personal knowledge and skills, and going beyond the minimum in all your work and interactions.

Required Texts

• Redish, E.F. (1996). Teaching Physics with the Physics Suite. (Only Chapters 2, 3, 6, and 8.) Available Online at: http://www2.physics.umd.edu/~redish/Book.