As a part of the Outreach Program in the Department of Physics at Purdue University, Distance Education provides valuable resources to High School Physics Teachers across the globe through distance courses in Physics. These courses are designed to enrich and update these teachers with current developments in physics education to meet their needs. The content and structure of the courses focus largely on the basics of physics, so individuals with limited backgrounds in physics are welcome. Having specified this, it should be mentioned that the basics of the discipline will typically focus on student misconceptions, or other areas of physics which are historically difficult to relate to high school students.
Besides Distance Education, each summer, we offer a workshop for teachers of AP Physics B & C. This program lasts for one week and is presented on the Purdue West Lafayette campus with the teachers residing in a dormitory. The participants are selected on a first-come, first-served basis. The instructor for the program is an experienced Indiana high school physics teacher who participated in one of the earliest of these AP programs, and has since revised and regularly updated the program content to accurately reflect the needs of Indiana physics teachers. He works closely with, and in cooperation with the Physics Outreach Coordinator.
The goal of the AP Physics Summer Program is to prepare high school physics teachers to deliver AP physics courses as mandated by the Indiana legislature. This is accomplished through a variety of classroom/laboratory hands-on exercises, and extensive use of computer interfacing for data collection and analysis. Particular attention is placed on matching course content and activities with state requirements for AP courses.
