A genuine teaching experience

Abstract

The NSF program Research Experiences for Undergraduates is motivated by the conviction that nothing is better than a genuine research experience for kindling a student’s enthusiasm for a career in science. Over the years REU has enabled thousands of undergraduate students to participate in research; for many of them the experience was pivotal in their decision to choose science as a career. Because the nation’s need for scientists is critical, the value of REU is inestimable. The nation’s need for high-school physics teachers is also critical. The shortage of qualified physics teachers is so grave that the problem is generally viewed as a crisis. (See reference 1 and also “Preparing High-School Physics Teachers,” by Ted Hodapp, Jack Hehn, and Warren Hein, in PHYSICS TODAY, February 2009, page 40.) For kindling an undergraduate’s enthusiasm for a career as a science teacher, I suggest that nothing is better than a genuine teaching experience. This optimistic belief in the power of a teaching experience springs from my engagement with a summer program that offers a small group of physics majors a genuine opportunity to teach, with some expert guidance. The program, now in its seventh year, is called Teaching Opportunities in Physical Science. TOPS takes place at MIT within the MIT–Harvard University Center for Ultracold Atoms (CUA), an NSF-sponsored research center. Eight undergraduate physics majors receive a summer teaching experience through TOPS. The number is tiny compared with the national need, but TOPS is propelled by the belief that even a small number of outstanding teachers can have an enormous impact over the years. TOPS students are recruited from physics departments at colleges and universities across the nation. They are well qualified in physics, often at the level for admission to a leading graduate school in physics. The participants are taught by a staff of two experienced high-school physics teachers, plus a TOPS alumnus who serves as staff assistant. The TOPS program operates for six weeks, from late June to early August. During its early years we learned that the student most valued the time actually spent teaching, and we make that time as long as possible. Before starting to teach, however, the students need to learn a few of the basics about planning a curriculum. Then, following a hands-on approach, they design their own lessons and construct experiments and demonstrations. They also learn some fundamentals in the art of teaching, and they practice conducting their classes with the staff and with each other. All this occupies the first two weeks with hours that extend to nights and weekends. The activities then move to the nearby Museum of Science, Boston, where TOPS takes over some middle-school classes for one week. Following that initiation into teaching, the students then revise the material and teach high-school students for two weeks in a TOPS-operated school at MIT. The high-school students come from the greater Boston area, attracted by the opportunity to learn some physics and spend time at MIT. Interest in the high-school program is high, spread by word of mouth. The enrollment limit is 24 students.