Do you want to learn more about the benefits of being a physics teacher in Texas? Do you want to find the best degree programs to become a physics teacher? Do you want to join forces with other teachers to tackle the challenges of teaching physics in Texas? Do you want to help prepare the next generation of physics teachers? Then you’ve come to the right place.
Welcome to the Texas PhysTEC Regional Network, or TPRN to its friends!
What We Do
Teaching physics and preparing people to teach physics is one of the most important, challenging, and rewarding jobs. Physics teaching comes with its own unique challenges, and being part of a community enables us to more effectively overcome hurdles and learn to be the best for our students. A community that includes everyone who cares about teaching physics – those of you who are considering teaching physics in high school as a career, those of you who already do, and those of you who join those dots by preparing students to be teachers. Each and every member of the physics teaching community is important, and everyone has a voice.
Hence the PhysTEC Texas Regional Network! The national societies of physicists and physics teachers – the American Physical Society and the American Association of Physics Teachers – sponsor PhysTEC (the Physics Teacher Education Coalition), a national project dedicated to producing more quality physics teachers. PhysTEC is sponsoring 4 universities across Texas – Texas A&M University-Commerce, University of Houston, Texas State University and University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley – to develop a state-wide community. Everyone invested in educating Texas in physics is invited!
Our Mission
PhysTEC recognizes that physics teaching has its own distinct skill set: it isn’t simply the equation knowing physics + knowing how to teach = knowing how to teach physics. Teaching physics has pedagogical demands that are different from teaching Biology, for example. To train effective physics teachers, it requires training students in physics, *and* in physics teaching. Through our community, we will be coming together to make sure our physics teachers receive the very best training and support. In these first few blog posts, we’ll address the three different communities we hope to bring together in this endeavor.