🚀 go-pugleaf

ANNOUNCEMENT
        In-service high school physics teachers nationwide are
invited to apply for an NSF-funded program of intensive workshops
to help them upgrade their teaching.  The Modeling Workshops
involve a thorough restructuring of the high school physics
curriculum design to incorporate (1) computer technology and (2)
teaching methods grounded in recent educational research and the
experience of exceptional teachers.
        The workshops are of two types:
        I. LEADERSHIP WORKSHOPS - open to exceptionally qualified
teachers who wish to be involved in the training of other
teachers.  Successful applicants participate in 5-week workshops
in summers 1995-96, with a 2-week wrap-up in summer of 1997 (thus
a 3-year commitment).  Sites are at Arizona State University and
the University of Illinois at Chicago.  Participants will be paid
$300 per week and given room and board and travel allowances.
Participants will be networked in an Internet learning community
during the school year.  The first application deadline is Feb.
10, 1995.
        II. LOCAL WORKSHOPS - open to all in-service physics
teachers, subject to organizational constraints.  Taught by
participants in the leadership workshops starting in 1997,
preferably in association with a university for academic credit.

        The instructional approach is called the Modeling Method,
because it emphasizes the construction and use of scientific
models to describe, to explain, and to predict physical
phenomena.  Rather than lecture, the teacher engages students in
lab activities and  promotes interactions with other students
which induce them to articulate, evaluate and defend their points
of view.  Computers are used to simplify data gathering and
analysis, so students can concentrate on understanding the
results.
        The method was developed for over ten years by Malcolm
Wells, a high school teacher and co-author of the widely-used
Force Concept Inventory and Mechanics Baseline test.  It has been
thoroughly tested in previous Modeling Workshops supported by the
NSF.  Teachers who have completed the workshops report that their
teaching behavior has been radically and permanently changed!

        (Please print this and give to an interested teacher.)

        Please direct inquiries to me at Box 871504, Dept. of
Physics, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1504. (602)
965-8438.  jane.jackson@asu.edu.


Jane Jackson (Professor of Physics, Scottsdale Community College--on leave)
Dept. of Physics, Box 871504, Arizona State University, Tempe AZ85287-1504.
E-mail: jacksonj@asu.edu or jackson@sc.maricopa.edu
Office phone: (602)965-8438. FAX: (602)965-7331.