The American Association of Physics Teachers

Abstract

Can you tell which problem came from what text? Calculus and first-year college physics seem to have a great deal in common. A large number of students take both courses, and their success in physics depends in an important way on their mathematical proficiency. Many of the physics faculty concerned with these and also more advanced courses are among the approximately 9000 members of the American Association of Physics Teachers, AAPT for short. The AAPT was founded in 1930 by a group of physicists who dedicated the Association to the advancement of the teaching of physics and the furtherance of the role of physics in our culture. A majority of the members are college or university faculty, while a minority teach in secondary schools. The AAPT therefore resembles the Mathematical Association of America in many ways. Three periodicals are published by the Association. The American Journal of Physics, with twelve issues totaling more than one thousand pages annually, focuses on instructional and cultural aspects of the physical sciences. It includes expository articles on physics as well as reports of new teaching approaches, physics instructional apparatus, and reviews. of books and films. The Journal is the oldest publication of AAPT and corresponds to the American Mathematical Monthly. The Physics Teacher comes out nine times annually and is primarily concerned with the teaching of introductory physics at all levels. The AAPT Announcer is a bulletin with four issues a year, carrying information about AAPT's annual meetings, news about the more than thirty Regional Sections, progress reports on AAPT's ongoing projects, and other items of general interest to physics teachers. The Association's winter meeting in late January is held jointly with the American Physical Society and alternates between East Coast, Midwest, and West Coast metropolitan centers. The summer meeting, which attracts about 350 participants, takes place at the end of June on a college campus in a more scenic environment. The meeting programs include invited and contributed papers as well as poster sessions on areas in physics, laboratory equipment, educational approaches, and possible new course topics. During recent years the meeting programs have also come to include interactive workshops in which the participants use programmable calculators, make single concept films, study developmental psychology (see below), design and assemble integrated circuit electronic devices, investigate the use of model rockets for physics instruction, or complete other short projects. The educational products sponsored and/or distributed by AAPT include more than 70 singleconcept physics films, more than thirty sets of slides illustrating physical phenomena, and Women in Science, a multi-media package presenting information about six women scientists to help girls inform themselves about scientific careers. Among the most popular film titles have been twelve made with NASA cooperation in the zero-gravity environment of Skylab. Annotated bibliographies of special interest to physics teachers are published in the American Journal of Physics as Resource Letters and are often accompanied by reprint books that include many of the references recommended. Sample titles from this list are Kinematics and Dynamics of Satellite Orbits, Quantum and Statistical Aspects of Light, and Achievement Testing in Physics. A recently introduced product is the Workshop on Physics Teaching and the Development of