Teachers Return to School for Physics, Math

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – As middle school, junior high, and high school students in the region finish classes, a group of their teachers are heading to the University of Arkansas to learn more about teaching physics and mathematics in grades 7-12.

Teachers from 40 regional districts will participate in the College Ready in Mathematics and Physics Partnership. Three groups of teachers will each attend workshops for one week on campus, starting June 6 and wrapping up June 2.

A central component of the partnership is a series of professional development workshops over the course of three years that lead to a master teacher certification. This year’s workshops include a cohort beginning their first year in the program as well as a returning cohort in their second year. At the end of the three-year cycle, these teachers will be the centers of professional learning communities in their schools, allowing mathematics and science teachers to work with each other to focus on improved student learning in their disciplines.

The partnership is funded by a five-year, $7 million grant from the National Science Foundation. Principal investigators Gay Stewart and Bernard Madison work to improve primary and secondary physics and mathematics education by building learning communities of university and high school faculty. Workshops are held at the Fayetteville campus as well as on the campus of the partner institution, the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith.

“Ultimately, the program should lead to decreases in the number of students who come to college needing remedial classes as well as increases in the number of students who are enrolling in Advanced Placement mathematics and physics courses,” said Stewart. “And, with the advice of our partner districts, we will be able to prepare future mathematics and physics teachers to be more effective in K-12.

The master teacher workshops feature inquiry-based learning, and the teachers experience the lessons as if they were students themselves so that they can understand the purpose of the activity in the big picture of classroom learning. The teachers in return must develop or revise lessons based on what they have learned and use them in the classroom.

 “As I implement inquiry activities in my lessons, the overwhelming response is one of excitement and eagerness,” said workshop participant Dusti Hearst, a science teacher at Van Buren High School. “They are excited to be out of the hum-drum routine of lecture and notes and eager to put on their thinking caps and be authors of their own learning.”

Last year’s program brought 172 high school and junior high school physics and mathematics teachers to workshops. The teachers get room and board and a $1,500 stipend for 45 hours of class time, funded by the NSF grant.

Stewart, an associate professor of physics, and Madison, professor of mathematics, are joined on the project by three other co-principal investigators: Shannon Dingman, assistant professor of mathematics at the university; John Jones, dean of the College of Education at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith; and Pete Joenks, assistant principal at Springdale High School.