1. Introduction2. Motivation and Uses3. Methodology4. Initial Participation in Alternate Teacher Certification ProgramA. Personal BackgroundB. Preconceived Ideas of Good TeachingC. Similarity to Other Participants in the Alternate Certification Program5. The Alternate Teacher Certification Program6. Significant Changes in My Understanding of Good Physics TeachingA. Developing Insights into Different Kinds of KnowledgeB. Changed Ideas regarding Student Discourse and VerbalizationC. Changed Beliefs about Open-Ended and Unstructured Laboratory Activities7. Program Elements I Felt Fostereding My Conceptual ChangesA. Student-Mode ExperiencesB. Pedagogical Content KnowledgeC. ReflectionD. Reformed Teacher Observation ProtocolE. Collaborative Group Learning, Student Discourse, and WhiteboardingF. Physics Education Research Seminar Course: PHY500G. Education CoursesH. Field Work and/ Substitute Teaching Experiences8. Conclusion9. Acknowledgements10. Biography1. Goal/subject of instructionA. Subject of ScienceB. Encouragement of Thinking2. Student ThinkingA. Progression of KnowledgeB. Construction of Knowledge3. Student Engagement and ActivitiesA. Engagement of Student AttentionB. Different Types of KnowledgeC. Student Verbalization & Explanations4. Elements of LearningA. Process of Science / LearningB. Important Elements to Learning5. Examples and LabsA. Realistic ExamplesB. Lab Activities6. Technology of TeachingA. Introduction of TechnologyB. Process of Science / Content7. Good Processes and Practices1PERSONAL REFLECTIONS ON GOOD PHYSICS TEACHING ALONG A ROAD LESS TRAVELED: A PH.D.N INDUSTRIAL PH.D. PHYSICIST’S ALTERNATIVE ROUTE TO TEACHING BECOMES A HIGH SCHOOL PHYSICS TEACHERCHRISTOPHER OLSZEWSKIDept. of Physics, SUNY – Buffalo State College, 1300 Elmwood Ave., Buffalo, NY [email protected] this paper, I describe changes to my ideas personal definitions of good teachingand learning as a result of my participatingon in an alternate teacher certification program for high school physics teachers at the State University of New York (SUNY) - Buffalo State College (BSC). My perspective is that of a career-changing professional industrial Ph.D. physicist after with 20 years experience in the telecommunications industry, but is unusual in that I already have my doctorate in physics. Before this program, Mmy initial ideas conceptions of good teaching and learning were fairly traditional and based on my own experiences as a student, but my ideas understanding of good teaching and learning were changed radically by my participation in the BSC alternative certification program. The heart of the BSC 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. My past assumptions of good teaching included using demonstrations solely to illustrate concepts from lectures,promoting understanding through extremely clear traditional lectuers, and carrying out laboratory work based on clear, complete, and unambiguous instructions. Now, Key elements of my current ideas of good physics teaching and2learning include are to providinge different kinds of knowledge about a topic to students (e.g., kinesthetic, visual, mathematical, etc.); to encouraginge students to verbalize their thinking; and to employing open-ended and unstructured laboratory activities. These and other changes to my conceptions philosophy of good teaching and learning 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 discourse and whiteboarding, and related guided reflections on learning and teaching during the program’s summer academy courses.1. IntroductionOne 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 not3likely teach in a way that will produce changes in the conceptions of students. To producechanges 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 (BSC’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 changes. My incoming perspective on physics teaching is was unusual for a beginning high school physics teacher in that I already hold held a doctorate in physics and have had a twenty-year career in telecommunications research and engineering. Due to my extensive formal education, I held had many views of what should I thought wasgointo good physics teaching, but now mostmany of those ideas have recently changed. This paper presents a personal journal account of a teacher’s my conceptual changes ofconcerning what constitutes good physics teaching and learning. I identify what I believe are the most significant changes to my ideas, and highlight the elements ofthe alternative certification program that brought about these changes. Although this paper is not a case study, it does represent the development, thinking, and environment ofa person with a rare point of view on teaching and learning physics at the high school level. My intention for this paper is to provide a different an industrial
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