1 Masters Paper Physics 690 November 1 2005 Chris Olszewski There is a current and projected shortage of mathematics and science teachers One place to fill this void is from the ranks of currently employed engineers or physicists from industrial or research positions As a Ph D physicist working in the telecommunications industry for 20 years I have myself decided to teach at the secondary school level for three reasons I believe it is very important that students have qualified teachers who know the subject especially since some of mine did not With an extensive physics background and an interest in teaching I believe that I will be a very good teacher Having thoroughly enjoyed my career up to this point I also believe that I will find teaching both rewarding and fun This paper is written as a somewhat personal retrospection on how my thinking about what constitutes good teaching has changed as a result of my participation in the Alternate Teacher Certification program at Buffalo State College Other professionals who may be on a similar track may use this as a heads up for what they may expect as they make the transition to teaching Also designers and implementers of Alternate Teaching Certification programs may use my observations to modify their programs to improve the preparations of the teachers they produce My background is somewhat rare for teaching at the high school level although not unique I received my doctorate in physics about 20 years ago at the University of Illinois and immediately went into systems engineering applied research position at Bell Labs I certainly was not interested at that time in teaching For the next two years I then held a variety of positions in systems engineering telecommunications research at AT T or one of their spin offs 2 As time went by these companies grew smaller and smaller I have used and maintained my capacity for scientific thinking and investigation during this time investigating various different stresses on telecommunication networks and strategies to compensate for them So I have maintained and used a technical frame of mind in my activities My decision to teach arose from the immense satisfaction I derived from teaching at a local community college for several semesters and acting as a volunteer for Project Astro in which I as an amateur astronomer visited two third grade classes for four years While I had always considered teaching important I did not expect to find it enjoyable or satisfying until I had actually done it Thus when the small start up I worked at failed I decided to try teaching full time as a profession My decision to teach at the high school level was arrived at consciously at the high school level I believe one can start to talk about physics with enough detail to be interesting to me Although higher educational levels would be even more interesting students at the college level have already largely determined their interests and pursuits Working with younger students gives the opportunity to shape their understanding of science and scientific thinking In this respect the younger the students are the better high school may be the last opportunity to really influence the mind and thinking of students for their later life A decision to teach as opposed to remain in an industrial research position is not taken lightly The financial remuneration is quite a bit lower in teaching however that is not the complete amount of benefit from a job One has to balance financial compensation with internal job satisfaction to determine the total recompense for a job This balance will likely vary from person to person 3 Thus in seeking to become certified to teach high school I enrolled in an alternate teaching program With my background I did not believe that I needed or wanted to complete a four year program to become a certified teacher My intention was to become certified quickly As I approached the prospect of teaching physics at the high school level or approached the program to become certified I admit to having several prejudices and pre conceived notions about what good teaching at that level would entail as well as notions about what would be included in an alternate certification program that would be useful in teaching My incoming prejudices were I had more than adequate subject matter mastery I had studied physics as an undergrad and as a graduate student with about 60 hours undergrad hours and about 20 graduate credits Additionally I had done research for my doctoral degree I did not need to learn more physics merely better ways to teach physics I had some ideas of how to teach physics Most of my undergrad and graduate courses were taught in a traditional lecture format the instructor designs and delivers lectures and prepares assignments for the students to complete The students sit mostly passively taking notes and learn the material by studying and completing the assignments My ideas of teaching physics well were to show how physics can be relevant to everyday life and to exploit my ability to explain physical scientific topics clearly to students However I did not intend to stray much outside the boundaries of the typical lecture format I did not anticipate learning much in the alternate teacher certification program at Buffalo State College I expected to take classes in learning how people learn and learning some techniques and approaches to teach physics to students However I 4 expected these techniques to be within the framework of a traditional lecture format Although I had heard that You can t just lecture to these students anymore I expected only to find ways of making the information more relevant and interesting to the students I did not expect my approach towards teaching to be revolutionized What I learned in the alternate certification program however did radically change my understanding of teaching and learning and changed my concepts about what constitutes good instruction The body of this paper describes the changes in my thinking Overall my understanding of what is important in good science teaching is that it is more important what students actually do than what the instructor tells them While the in class emphasis becomes more on what students do and the actions of the teacher become less important the role of the teacher actually becomes different but more crucial Although the teacher no longer has to prepare clear lectures and develop good exercises or at least not to the same extent the
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