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University of Arkansas win 7M MSP grant, "College Ready in Math and Science"

Arkansas Conceptual Inventory Construction Tool has been released for initial testing. Access the tool here.


 
PhysTEC Courses
BA Physics Program
Physics Education Research
College of Education
Teacher In Residence(TIR)
Educational Engineering


The NSF has awarded a five-year, $5.76 million grant to The American Physical Society, the American Association of Physics Teachers and the American Institute of Physics for the PhysTEC program. FIPSE, in the U.S. Department of Education, awarded a three-year, $498 thousand grant for the PhysTEC program.

What is PhysTEC?

The Physics Teacher Education Coalition (PhysTEC) is an aggressive effort to build working relationships between the major contributors to the development of physical science teachers: the science department, the education department, and the regional school systems. These new relationships are focused on improved recruiting and training of physical science teachers to greatly increase the pool of high quality teachers. This is accomplished in many ways.

  • By presentation of the educational career path as possible career choice to technical students at all levels.
  • By construction of degree programs that integrate the physics program with the College of Education and Health Professions program to ease the educational career path for technically oriented students.
  • By providing introductory classes that are good models of teaching using interactive engagement techniques.
  • By providing further education classes that explore the pedagogy behind the introductory classes.
  • By using professional links to regional school systems to ease and inform the transition to teaching.

PhysTEC is improving education in Arkansas

The PhysTEC program at the University of Arkansas has had many very positive effects on the University of Arkansas Department of Physics, the College of Education and Health Professions, and the State of Arkansas . The program continues to support the recruiting and placing of high quality candidates that have a background in inquiry-based learning in local schools. The program has brought teachers-in-residence into the physics department. Their input has been invaluable in restructuring course material. The program has allowed the modification of all introductory courses to support interactive engagement methods and the construction of specialized advanced classes to explore those methods. The program has allowed the construction of a BA physics program integrated with the College of Education to provide a seamless educational experience for future teachers interested in physics.

 
 
 
  
Teacher In Residence(TIR) The TIR is a key component of the PhysTEC strategy for improving the connections between the departments of education and physics and the local school systems. It places real K-12 educational experience in the physics department.
BA Physics Program A degree sequence was constructed specifically to support students who wished to obtain a degree in physics while preparing to become certified as a teacher.
Physics Education Research The improvement of the introductory sequence has been monitored with very detailed measurements of class performance. Some of these measurements have lead to general educationally relevant conclusions. These results have been presented at national meetings.
PhysTEC Courses Some of the course materials modified for PhysTEC are available through this site, others from the national PhysTEC site, and others to educators through the mail.
College of Education and Health Professions As part of the PhysTEC collaboration courses have been created in the College of Education to further explore the methodologies used to create the PhysTEC courses.
Arkansas Conceptual Evaluation Construction Tool A preliminary version of the tool to design and automatically construct conceptual electricity and magnetism exams has been released. Access the tool here or read about the tool here.