Lillian C. McDermott
58
History
3/15/10
have been possible.
Without the NSF seal of approval, our group would not have been
established, nor continue to exist, in the UW Physics Department.
In countries very much
like our own (
e.g.,
Canada and U.K.), but in which the agencies that fund scientific
research do not support education research at the university level, there have been fewer
sustained efforts by faculty to improve the learning of physics by university students.
Without funding from NSF, we could not have accomplished what we have.
The hope
that universities will take financial responsibility for a group like ours is unrealistic.
In the early days, I relied on the counsel of Ray Hannapel (who was the program
director for my first research grant in 1978 and who was also very supportive when I was
a Division Director at NSF).
I have gotten useful advice on our teacher education grants
from a series of program directors, of whom Gerhard Salinger is the most recent.
We
continue to benefit from the guidance of Duncan McBride, our CCLI program director.
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A.
K-12 Teacher Preparation and Professional Development
The emphasis in the UW Physics Education Group in the early 1970s was on the
preparation and professional development of K-12 teachers in physics and physical
science.
At that time, the involvement of university physics faculty in the preparation of
elementary school teachers was relatively rare.
A few physics faculty conducted
PSSC
Summer Institutes.
154
(My husband, Mark, taught in at least one of these.)
As mentioned earlier, summer programs for elementary school teachers began at
UW in 1971.
Ours were very different from the type of workshops that were envisioned
for implementation of the NSF-supported elementary school curricula in the post-Sputnik
era.
The idea had been that teachers would participate in short workshops, learn how to
use the materials, and then continue to learn more as they taught their students.
These
teachers would also conduct short workshops for their colleagues, who would then do the
same.
In this way, science education reform would spread.
The belief that “teachers
teaching teachers” would improve K-12 science education did not take into account the
dilution at every level of this chain nor the teachers’ need for ongoing support.
153
Before leaving NSF in 1984, I interviewed Duncan McBride who had applied for a position.
I never
imagined that he would one day be the program director on a CCLI grant for which I would be the PI.
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These summer programs were funded by NSF to prepare high school teachers to teach
PSSC
Physics
.
See Physical Science Study Committee (Haber-Schaim et al.),
PSSC Physics
(1960).
Lillian C. McDermott
59
History
3/15/10
Since 1977 until the present day, I have been the Principal Investigator (PI) on a
series of six-week K-12 Summer Institutes.
We have been able to build a local
professional community of K-12 teachers committed to teaching science by inquiry and in
continuing to learn in the same way themselves.
Our weekly Continuation Courses have
become a source of intellectual and emotional support for teachers in Seattle and
surrounding school districts.
School superintendents have come and gone, as have several
large-scale NSF professional development initiatives, but we have continued to support
the teachers who have participated in our programs.
National programs of limited
duration have not succeeded in doing the same (at least not in our area).
When the
personnel involved change, the programs that they have established degenerate.
Our
group has managed to remain a stable source of encouragement and support for teachers.
B.
Undergraduate Education
The development of
Tutorials in Introductory Physics
was first funded by NSF in
1994.
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When Duncan McBride (our CCLI program director) requested that we form a
National Visiting Committee (NVC), I asked Joe Redish to be the Chair. David Campbell
(then Physics Head, U. of Illinois; later Provost, Boston U.) became Chair after Joe’s
departure. Priscilla Laws and Eric Mazur have been on the NVC since its inception.
Priscilla has also served as Chair.
More recently, Jim Stith (then Vice-President,
American Institute of Physics) took on this responsibility.
Other physicists and physical
chemists currently on our NVC are Laurie McNeil (Physics Chair, U. of North Carolina)
and William Reinhardt (Chemistry, UW).
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An early recommendation of the NVC was that we conduct faculty workshops on
the tutorials.
We were reluctant at first but soon recognized the value and began to do the
same for
PbI
.
By 2010 we had conducted about 250 workshops on our two curricula.
The
NVC has been very supportive of us in the physics community. We have also benefited
from suggestions by Judith Edgington and Ruth Von Blum, evaluators for our NSF grants.
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The project has been supported primarily by the Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement
(CCLI) Program of the Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE) in the Education and Human
Resources Directorate (EHR).
The Division of Physics in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Directorate (MPS) also provided some initial support.
A Phase III CCLI grant in 2006 enabled us
to extend tutorials to more advanced courses.
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Previous NVC members include
Warren Buck (UW, Bothell), Audrey Champagne (Education, SUNY)
and Don Kirk (Dean, Engineering, San Jose State).
