Thursday August 30, 2001 |

Grant will assist current students in finding future teaching jobs

A new national program has awarded $500,000 to the UA physics department to assist students who want to become science teachers.

The University of Arizona was one of six schools across the nation to be selected for the Physics Teacher Education Coalition Award. Overall, nine schools were evaluated to receive the award.

"Anyone who takes a look at what's going on in schools will see that there is a problem with science," said Frederick Stein, director of education and outreach for the American Physical Society, told the Arizona Daily Star. "The overwhelming majority of science classes are just boring and we need to change that."

The grant is funded by the National Science Foundation and was spearheaded by the coalition made up of the American Physical Society, American Institute of Physics and American Association of Physics Teachers.

Ingrid Novodvorsky, assistant professor of physics at the UA, said the grant is intended to modify existing courses and implement a mentoring program. She added that the funds are to be issued over five years.

Novodvorsky said the university will provide a mentoring program for its graduates who decide to teach science in secondary schools. She said some of the funding will be allocated to assist those graduates from UA who are in their first to third year of teaching.

She said part of the money will be used to hire a physics teacher from a local school district to work in the department. She added that money will also go to making changes in the courses that future professors will teach.

She said the program will prepare college students to teach middle or high school science.

"The physics department has a commitment to teacher preparation," Novodvordsky said.

She added that UA is unique compared to the other schools selected to receive the grant because it is the only one with a teacher preparation program.

Novodvorsky said that J.D. Garcia, a UA physics professor, attended a meeting and brought word of the program and grant back to his associates at the university. She said from there, herself, along with Garcia and UA physics professor John McCullen, collaborated on the effort to receive the award.

Novodvorsky said receiving the award speaks highly of the department and its efforts to provide quality services and programs to its students.

"It is a recognition of our unique teacher preparation program," she said.