Summer Fun with Jacobs Physics

Okay, I kind of admit that this post is an advertisement.

I will be running four-- count 'em, FOUR-- Advanced Placement Summer Institutes.  The APSI is a week-long class designed, in principle, for new and experienced  teachers to learn and share ways to teach an AP course.  I would suggest that the APSI is useful professional development for ANY high school or college physics teacher, from conceptual physics all the way through the introductory undergraduate course.

At my APSI we spend a few hours discussing a physics program, specifically as it relates to the AP exam -- recruitment and selection of students, structure of the exam, topic coverage, selling the course to students, parents, and administrators, etc.  We then spend the vast majority of the week on the teaching of physics.  Specifically, I share a large number of my quantitative demonstrations on a wide variety of topics; I also run several laboratory exercises, and provide my entire lab sequence.  You will receive a 70-page packet of my teaching materials, a printed copy of some of the recent AP free response exams, and a CD with 30+ years of released free response and multiple choice AP physics tests, with solutions, corrections, fundamentals quizzes, and more.

Most importantly, the participants and I spend time getting to know one another.  We take ideas from each other; we make contacts which we draw upon during the school year.  I still remember and use all of the wonderful advice I received from experienced teachers at a summer institute I attended in 1997. 

Are you considering teaching AP in the future?  Come to an APSI.  Do you just want to improve your non-AP class?  Do you want to see the things we are doing in AP, with the intent of using what you like and discarding what you don't?  Do you want to just find out what AP physics is about before you make any kind of decision about the direction of your program?  Come to my APSI.

I will be offering five sessions this summer.  To sign up, contact the host univeristy; I can also give you personal contact information for the institute director if you email me.  The locations and dates of the Jacobs Physics institutes:

June 21-25, University of Georgia (Athens, GA, an hour north of Atlanta)
June 28-July 1, Kennesaw State University (near Atlanta)
July 19-23, North Carolina State University (Raleigh, NC)
Aug. 2-6, Manhattan College (in the North Bronx on a subway line)

Spread the word... if you can't yourself attend, see if a colleague or friend is interested.  The more the merrier.

GCJ