- Year 2017
- NSF Noyce Award # 1439762
- First Name Kurt
- Last Name Fletcher
- Discipline Physics
- Co-PI(s)
James McLean, SUNY Geneseo, mclean@geneseo.edu
Dennis Showers, SUNY Geneseo, showers@geneseo.edu
Kathryn Rommel-Esham, SUNY Geneseo, rommel@geneseo.edu - Presenters
James McLean, SUNY Geneseo, mclean@geneseo.edu
Need
Physics Departments have a responsibility to recruit and to retain preservice high school physics teachers.
Goals
Early teaching experiences can strengthen recruitment and retention by giving undergraduate physics majors a preview of the teaching profession, and by providing a supportive community for preservice physics teachers.
Approach
Through our Noyce Teacher Scholarship project, we have developed a program in which preservice physics teachers engage in the design and presentation of lecture demonstrations, a model that can easily be adopted at other institutions. By incorporating undergraduate research on student learning, we highlight that teaching science is an intellectually challenging endeavor.
Outcomes
Assessment data indicate that participation in the program increases interest in teaching.
Broader Impacts
Participants report that the community formed among the preservice physics teachers is an important component of the program.
