1 PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON GOOD PHYSICS TEACHING ALONG A ROAD LESS TRAVELED A PH D PHYSICIST S ALTERNATIVE ROUTE TO TEACHING HIGH SCHOOL PHYSICS CHRISTOPHER OLSZEWSKI SUNY Buffalo State College 1300 Elmwood Ave Buffalo NY 14222 cjo496 yahoo com ABSTRACT In this paper I describe changes to my ideas of good teaching as a result of my participation in an alternate teacher certification program for high school physics teachers at the State University of New York SUNY Buffalo State College My perspective is that of a career changing professional after 20 years in the telecommunications industry but is unusual in that I already have my doctorate in physics My initial ideas of good teaching were fairly traditional and based on my own experiences as a student but my ideas of good teaching were changed radically by my participation in the alternative certification program The heart of the program is a summer academy suite of modeling courses and has additional components of an introduction to physics education research educational courses and field work Key elements of my current ideas of good physics teaching are to provide different kinds of knowledge about a topic to students e g kinesthetic visual mathematical etc to encourage students to verbalize their thinking and to employ open ended and unstructured laboratory activities These and other changes to my conceptions can be traced to the themes of the program which include student mode experiences extensive exposure to pedagogical content knowledge a marked student centric emphasis strong promotion of student 2 discourse and whiteboarding and related guided reflections on learning and teaching during the program s summer academy courses 1 Introduction One well documented and researched representation of learning is that of the conceptual change model Hewson P W Hewson M G 1988 Trigwell K 1996 Koballa T Jr Graber W Coleman D C Kemp A C 2000 Yip D Y 2001 In this model students can change the concepts that they use to make sense of the world using this model the goal of teaching is to effect these conceptual changes Other models of learning exist such as learning to memorize facts or to gain knowledge Trigwell 1996 Koballa et al 2000 or learning to solve problems Trigwell 1996 Yip D Y 2001 When the conceptual change model is compared to other models of learning it is usually considered more favorably because of the wider applicability of conceptual knowledge Teachers conceptions of what constitutes good teaching will strongly influence what type of learning they encourage in their students Trigwell 1996 Yip 2001 Lingbiao G Watkins D 2001 If a teacher believes that learning science means learning many facts then that teacher will likely teach facts to the students and will not likely teach in a way that will produce changes in the conceptions of students To produce changes in what teachers try to teach it is the teachers conceptions of good teaching that need to be changed Hewson Hewson 1988 Trigwell 1996 Lingbiao Watson 2001 As I participated in SUNY Buffalo State College s alternate teacher certification program for high school physics teachers MacIsaac D Zawicki J Henry D Beery D Falconer K 2004 my conceptions of good physics teaching underwent radical 3 changes My perspective on physics teaching is unusual for a beginning high school physics teacher in that I already hold a doctorate in physics and have had a twenty year career in telecommunications research and engineering I held many views of what I thought was good physics teaching but now most of those ideas have changed This paper presents a personal journal of a teacher s conceptual change of good physics teaching and learning I identify what I believe are the most significant changes to my ideas and highlight the elements of the alternative certification program that brought about these changes Although this paper is not a case study it does represent the development thinking and environment of a person with a rare point of view on teaching and learning physics at the high school level My intention for this paper is provide a different perspective on one alternate teacher certification program 2 Motivation and Uses The information in this paper could be useful to three groups of people Those who will be making use of alternate teacher certification programs There is a large projected shortage of science and mathematics teachers and these teachers could be drawn from the ranks of industrial researchers and engineers working for shrinking companies Wenning C J 2005 This information could alert them to possible changes to their own ideas of good teaching Those who develop and coordinate alternate teacher certification programs This paper presents a perspective describing which elements of such a program were effective in promoting conceptual change 4 Those who study alternate teacher preparation programs This information could be used to help refine future investigations 3 Methodology This paper presents and analyzes teacher conceptual changes and so reports both initial and subsequent conceptions of good physics teaching Information regarding changes to my understanding of good physics teaching was specifically recorded in class notes and class assignments during the summer academy courses of the alternate certification program Many of the assignments were guided reflections written to describe some significant aspect of my learning or teaching physics Some information also comes from my descriptions of observations I made of actual physics teachers and students Although this paper is necessarily somewhat subjective I try to use my training as a scientist to record observations as objectively as possible Some descriptions of my prior notions of good science teaching became clearer after I recorded my current understanding of good teaching 4 Initial Participation in Alternate Teacher Certification Program To be able to evaluate changes in my ideas of good teaching it is necessary to know my ideas before I participated in the alternate teacher certification program These pre conceptions were in part formed by my educational and professional backgrounds so I first describe these backgrounds In addition comparisons are drawn between me and other participants in the program so that any wider applicability of my comments may be judged A Personal Background 5 My background is somewhat unusual for teaching at the high school level although not unique After majoring in physics at McGill
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