Arkansas site leader Gay Stewart and future teachers discuss the design of an assessment.

 

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University of Arkansas Project Report 2007

Demographics

PhysTEC Definitions

PhysTEC Graduates

Grade Band	Baseline			Project
	Year 1 1998 - 1999	Year 2 1999 - 2000	Year 3 2000 - 2001	Year 1 2001 - 2002	Year 2 2002 - 2003	Year 3 2003 - 2004	Year 4 2004 - 2005	Year 5 2005 - 2006	Year 7	Year 6 2006 - 2007
K-6*	0	0	0	0	0	0	18	18		12
7-12	0	1	0	1	3	3	3	8		6

(7-12 graduates are certified to teach physics.)

We keep in contact with all of our physics graduates, at the bachelors or MA level. Even once they are done with their three years of mentoring, they keep in touch.

For the first few years of the project the Master of Arts in Teaching at the University of Arkansas, prerequisites were such that students deciding late on a career in teaching could not enter the program without an extra year in school, so they pursued nontraditional licensure. Starting in the 2005-2006 year, this was no just longer the case.

PhysTEC Future Teachers

Project Year	2001-2002	2002-2003	2003-2004	2004-2005	2005-2006	2006-2007
PhysTEC Future Teachers	97	84	87	87	91	99

PhysTEC future teachers are only counted in the first course in which they are identified as a teacher. Once they are identified as a teacher, we keep track of them by name. If they had already been counted as a PhysTEC student, they are counted in both categories.

PhysTEC Mentors and Mentees

Project Year	Baseline			Project
	Year 1 1998 - 1999	Year 2 1999 - 2000	Year 3 2000 - 2001	Year 1 2001 - 2002	Year 2 2002 - 2003	Year 3 2003 - 2004	Year 4 2004 - 2005	Year 5 2005 - 2006	Year 6 2006 - 2007
PhysTEC Mentors (Current and Prior TIRs)	0	0	0	1	1	2	3	3	3
Mentored PhysTEC Future Teachers				1	3	15	62*	63	64
Mentored PhysTEC Teachers				1	4	6	6	15	17
Mentored Non-PhysTEC Teachers	1	0	0	0	0	0	2	1	1

*While mentoring of preservice and inservice high school teachers remained greatly the same as initially envisioned by the project in its nature, and is described briefly in the TIR section, the mentoring of elementary teachers continued to blossom as a strong point in the local program, greatly increasing the number of teachers being effectively mentored. More details will be posted Fall 2007 at the UA TIR webpage.For now, please find an example of what elementary mentoring looks like, and why these numbers seem so large here.

Enrollment-- PhysTEC Students

Course Type	Baseline			Project
	Year 1 1998 - 1999	Year 2 1999 - 2000	Year 3 2000 - 2001	Year 1 2001 - 2002	Year 2 2002 - 2003	Year 3 2003 - 2004	Year 3 2004 - 2005	Year 5 2005 - 2006	Year 6 2006 - 2007
3rd semester calculus-based: therm, fluids, waves	10	15	16	23	22	20	13	19	11
1st  Semester: mechanics + Algebra-based	164	166	196	209	188	166	190	210	210
2nd Semester: EM + Algebra- based	112	137	163	168	113	124	159	183	181
1st  Semester Calculus- based mechanics	331	350	386**	285	314	385	405	377	419
2nd Semester Calculus- based EM, optics	224	282	257	235	216	263	285	290	261
Conceptual Physics Course	750*	630	668	654	688	661	690	645	609
Educ Methods Course	0	0	8	13	11	10	14	14	14
Physics Methods Course	0	0	8	16	11	10	18	21	12
Physics for Elementary Teachers begun SP05)							14	13	28
EachPhysTEC Students Total	0	0	11 were preparing	1165	1201	1222	1317	1273	1280
UARK total:  7469

Students were only counted in the first course they took in the department. The total enrollment for each course is shown, but the “PhysTEC Students Total” line removes from the count students who took more than one course. We have assigned each student a unique ID number, so we can keep track of this.

In spring of 2007, a special elective class was offered just for five future physics teachers, taught by Gay Stewart. The class was called Physics In Perpsective, and used the textbook Physics: the human adventure, by G. Holton and S. G. Brush (Rutgers University Press, 2001).

The number of students in Physics for Elementary Teachers will rise substantially in 2007-2008, when this course will be required.