Main Activities for the Teachers' Day
Helpful examples of previous Teachers' Day agendas:
It is recommended that topics for presentations and workshops be drawn from the expertise of the particular division or section hosting the meeting.
Presenters for research talks are typically recruited from among the meeting participants and they can be asked to speak from their own research expertise.
Good topics include those that are cutting-edge, interesting to a broad audience, and able to be given at the level of the high school physics teachers, who on the average have completed two years of an undergraduate physics curriculum.
Ideally the content should also be comprehensible, to some degree, to high school students, since the teachers will often want to pass what they've learned on to their students.It is also hoped that the talks will give the participants a bit of the flavor of doing research.
It is helpful if one of the talks is applied in nature, and to encourage the presenters to include some sort of participation by the audience.
Other topics for the presentation could emphasize applications of physics, such as in engineering or medicine. Experience has shown that it pays to ask around for recommendations of speakers who are effective in communicating with a general audience.
An example of a successful approach has been to consult the APS Women in Physics Speakers List for potential speakers, which in addition to supplying a database of fine speakers, can also help bring better gender equity to the pool of speakers. When considering a particular speaker it helps to speak with her/his department for reference.
Workshops and Hand-On Activities
Finding effective workshop presenters can be a challenge. It can be very helpful to check with several universities in the area of an upcoming Teachers' Day, and also with the local AAPT section leadership. In addition, it helps to ask the science coordinators of local school districts for suggestions. The APS has reimbursed presenters up to $200 per workshop for materials.
An additional valuable resource for workshop presenters is AAPT's national Physics Teacher Resource Agent (PTRA) program. PTRAs are local master teachers who are carefully trained to produce high quality workshops on a variety of topics. The PTRA program is directed by Jim Nelson (nelsonjh@ix.netcom.com).
