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Introduction
Introduction
With the growing adoption of NGSS standards nationwide, many school districts are moving away from ensuring access to physics courses in favor of physical science or integrated science courses. As a physical science teacher myself along with physics I find this shift to be appropriate as it offers students simply seeking to meet core science requirements an opportunity to do so with what can be considered to be a more "accessible" and less math-heavy science offering, however I do pause when it leads to the elimination of a physics course.
If you are reading this then you already know that students who have interest in moving into a STEM field whether it be engineering, aerospace, architecture, or even the biomedical field all should be exposed to physics at the high school level. According to the American Institute of Physics this tends not to be a reality for many of our students.
What this likely means is that if you are teaching physics, you may be the only physics teacher at your school. Where can you find support? Keep reading!
Physics Groups & Memberships
Physics Groups & Memberships
One of the best professional development opportunities I have had was simply to conference and meet with physics teachers from other schools and districts. While this can occur at any type of conference or district meeting, there are more specific groups and conferences you can join to network and collaborate within.
The AAPT holds a summer and winter conference annually that brings together many of the best physics teachers in the nation and includes many workshops that can specifically grow your classroom practices and expand your teaching philosophy and pedagogy.
The StepUP program is a national movement to encourage and support more female students to pursue physics and create a more equitable landscape for those in the physics fields. Joining this program brings you together with many like-minded teachers and gives you access to a helpful newsletter.
This group is for all science teachers and its scope is far and wide. Many resources available and you are likely to find fellow members nearby.
Great physics resource in general for teachers. More of a repository for resources, new research, and general awareness of what is going on in the physics community!
Social Media Spaces
Social Media Spaces
Twitter
Twitter
This last summer my wife and I welcomed our 2nd child. What that meant was I spent a lot of time rocking him to sleep and staring at my phone. Wanting to be a little more productive I reactivated my Twitter account and dove head first into the amazing physics community that makes Twitter worthwhile despite everything else that occurs on that platform. To access the physics community on twitter you mostly need to learn how to navigate two things: Hashtags and Community leaders.
Hashtags
Hashtags
This one is simple. Downloaded twitter for the first time and want to see some good physics resources? Search up this hashtags, and attach them to your own relevant physics posts:
People to Follow
People to Follow
Some of these I mentioned back in my first blog post, but once again her is a non-exhaustive list of physics leaders in the Twitter space as a list. Alternatively you can scroll down to see the different accounts-at-a-glance (In no particular order):
Facebook Groups
Facebook Groups
I have found Facebook groups to be a helpful repository of resources as each group has a "files" tab where you can search for specific resources, and many group members will simply share their google or onedrives with teachers who request it.
These groups are also a great space for getting help with tricky physics problems that could use the eyes of your fellow physics teachers. Here are a few groups you may find helpful (all are free to join, just need to answer a few survey questions to ensure you're not a student looking for answer keys!):
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