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.