TPT WebSights column draft for May, 2009:
WebSights features announcements and reviews of select sites of
interest to physics teachers. All
sites are copyright by their authors.
This column is available as a web page at http://PhysicsEd.BuffaloState.Edu/pubs/WebSights/.
If you have
successfully used a physics website that you feel is outstanding and
appropriate for WebSights,
please email me the URL and describe how you use it to teach or learn
physics. macisadl@buffalostate.edu.
Some resources
for mentoring our new colleagues in the fall (Teacher Induction)
Many of us will
be welcoming new colleagues in the coming fall and we may be called upon to
mentor or guide these new physics teaching faculty. Paul Hickman, editor of Paul Hickman's Eye on Education at the PTEC website http://www.ptec.org/ writes of two mentoring resources that you may want
to peruse over the summer while preparing for new colleagues:
The New
Teacher Center @ UC Santa
Cruz http://www.newteachercenter.org/index.php
The New
Teacher Center (NTC), recognized as a
national resource with new and veteran educators, researchers, and policy
makers to support the development of strong K-12 induction models. They also
provide resources and programs that address effective mentoring and supervision
practices, issues of equity, using student data to improve instruction, and
strategies for meeting the needs of English Language Learners.
The
Exploratorium Teacher Institute Program for New Science Teachers http://www.exploratorium.edu/ti/induction.html
For over ten
years, the Exploratorium Teacher Institute has included a Teacher Induction Program that
consists of a two-year Beginning Teacher Program for novice science teachers,
and a two-year Leadership Program that trains experienced teachers to be
mentors and coaches of the new teachers. Two useful resources have come out of
this work: short downloadable guides for mentors and instructional coaches.
Acoustics
collection -- Chladni Plates, Standing Waves by Anthony Mangiacapre
Tony Mangiacapre
of St Mary's HS Physics has again been extending his collection of HS teaching
resources at http://www.stmary.ws/physics/home/ most recently with sound resources. His new page at http://www.stmary.ws/highschool/physics/home/notes/waves/StandingWave.htm includes some very nice Chladni plate videos, and
these have been of particular interest to one of my students working on a
Chladni Plate project.
More online
physics teaching collections: Pretty Good Physics and Physics Tricks
I am a wiki
aficionado, and was recently shown the wiki Pretty Good Physics at http://prettygoodphysics.wikispaces.com , where an electronic collection of freely accessible
HS and AP physics teaching web resources is being assembled. This appears to be an informal version
of the much more thoroughly-vetted collection at the Physics Sciences
Resource Center http://www.compadre.org/psrc/search/browse.cfm?browse=gsss A
second nifty wiki called http://physicstricks.wikispaces.com/ appears to be in progress as well. Although the PSRC site is better
vetted, and I think the formal gold standard for this kind of enterprise, I do
see a need for teacher- constructed, less formally constrained collections of
physics teaching materials, and I wish the authors and contributors to these
wikis every success. Consider
contributing yourself.
Summer Physics
Opportunities for Teachers Redux: There's golden opportunity out there
I close the WebSights column year by exhorting readers to take advantage of
the many summer professional development and research opportunities for physics
teachers. In addition to the teacher workshops collected at http://modeling.asu.edu/MW_nation.html, the PTEC group maintains a national list of opportunities for
teachers including US National Laboratory internships, and NSF-funded Research Opportunities
for Teachers (RETs) at http://www.ptec.org/rets/mapboth.cfm . While some of these opportunities are now closed
for registration, many are still accepting applicants and recent US federal
government funding trends seem particularly encouraging, so you might even
inquire about late registration and supplemental opportunities. Many of these opportunities are paid,
some carry graduate credit and all should renew your love of physics
teaching. Have a great summer.