New Faculty Experience for Two-Year College Physics Instructors

两年制学院（TYCs）在美国高等教育体系中扮演着重要角色，为36%的高等教育学生提供服务。在医疗领域或替代能源等增长领域的再培训通常需要物理方面的内容知识。但需求不仅仅是内容知识。未来的员工需要科学解决问题、综合信息和产品设计等技能。虽然传统教学提供以学科为基础的内容，但它并不总是允许学生发展这些技能。在发展以研究为基础的物理教学策略方面已经作出了大量的努力，以加强内容学习和科学技能的发展。然而，美国物理研究所对TYC物理教师的调查显示，大多数时候，60%以上的班级都有传统的讲座，43%的TYC受访者没有使用调查中列出的任何一种创新策略。该项目的主要目标是通过为60名新的TYC物理教师提供18个月的强化专业发展经验，对TYC的STEM教育产生重大影响，其中包括：(1)项目工作人员和参与者之间的在线互动，专注于物理教育领域的开创性论文；(2)以工作坊形式进行为期4天的沉浸式体验，参与者可以直接体验几种基于研究的教学策略；(3)会后在线辅导和与选定学员的现场会议；(4)与美国全国物理教师协会会议同时举行的后续会议，与会者将提出顶点项目。第二个项目目标是通过表彰那些在项目中表现出早期领导特质的校友，进一步培养TYC物理界的下一代领导者。这些项目的校友正在与当前的参与者分享他们最近的转变，并就领导团队在各个方面战略性地采用的哲学方法提供见解。他们还在物理社区领导方面接受指导，并有机会领导会议。

Two-year colleges (TYCs) play a significant role in the United States' higher education system, serving 36% of the students in higher education. Retraining in growth areas such as the medical field or alternative energy often requires content knowledge in physics. But the needs go beyond just content knowledge. Future employees are in need of skill sets such as scientific problem solving, synthesizing information and product design. While traditional instruction provides discipline-based content, it does not always allow students to develop these skills. Substantial efforts have been made to develop research-based instructional strategies in physics that enhance both content learning and development of scientific skill sets. However, the American Institute of Physics survey of TYC physics faculty members has shown that traditional lectures occurred in over 60% of the classes most of the time and 43% of the respondents at TYCs were not using a single innovative strategy listed on the survey. The major goal of this project is to have a significant impact on STEM education at TYCs by providing sixty new TYC physics instructors with an eighteen-month intensive professional development experience that includes: (1) on-line interactions among project staff and participants, focused on seminal papers in physics education; (2) a 4-day immersion experience, in workshop format, where participants receive direct experience with several research-based instructional strategies; (3) post-conference online mentoring and on-site meetings with select mentees; and (4) a follow-up conference conducted in tandem with a national American Association of Physics Teachers meeting where participants present capstone projects.The second project goal is to further the development of the next generation of leaders in the TYC physics community by recognizing as "alumni-in-residence" past program graduates who exhibited early leadership traits while in the program. These program alumni are sharing their recent transformations with current participants and providing insight into the philosophical approach the leadership team strategically employs in each aspect of the experience. They are also being mentored in physics community leadership and provided opportunities to lead sessions.