[INAAPT] INAAPT meeting

Mon Apr 30 11:50:25 EST 2007

Having had a couple of days to chew on the subject of when/where to have
INAAPT meetings I am finally ready to step forward and contribute my two
bits worth of opinion.

First, let's keep in mind that we are all committee to the success of the
INAAPT. At the same time we need to realize that our resources are very
limited. It is difficult to say no but it is better to continue doing a few
things well rather than a lot of things poorly. That said, I address the
issues brought up in the current spate of messages.

1. No matter where we hold the meeting, someone will think (i.e. say) it is
too far to travel. What they are really saying is, for whatever stated
reasons, in their opinion, it isn't worth the trouble to attend.

2. Moving the meeting around the state is a good idea as it encourages
people who do use distance as an excuse to show up at least occassionally.
It also allows teachers to see many of the fine facilities we have for
physics in the state. I appreciate Judy Conlon's and Purdues efforts in
supporting the INAAPT administratively. However, I believe it would be a
grave mistake to host our meeting at Purdue every year.

3. I strongly believe we need to continue to have one meeting a year that we
can call our own. The spring meeting works best for me as my work is winding
down and I can afford to take some time off. I recognize this isn't true for
other people. High school teachers seem to be especially busy during this
time. But then, they seem to be especially busy all the time. It comes with
the territory. I do look at the Spring meeting as a reward for the hard work
I have done. It is my chance to visit with others who have the same
interests and aspirations. Whether we have ten or a hundred attendees it is
where I go to get reinforcement and confirmation that my efforts are indeed
worthwhile. It may sound trite but I am always rejuvenated after attending
one of our meetings. The euphoria doesn't alwas last long but the momentary
high does motivate me, knowing that I will get another in a few months.

4. We are not alone in dwindling attendance. This seems to be a problem
across the board when it comes to the sciences at the high school (and
college) level. There are simply too many competing activities. Even when
teachers are compensated for their time and travel it is difficult to get
them to come. One of the issues is the growth and success of HASTI.This is
an important meeting for teachers because so much is happening in one place.
We perhaps should be better represented by giving talks or perhaps workshops
at HASTI but we are constrained by time and our own commitments. Another
issue is that the traditional activities that have been popular to physics
teachers in the past are being replaced by activities that require less
active participation by the teachers. Rather than science fairs where the
teacher, or someone else, must work closely with individual students, we are
going to Science Olympiads and Science Knowledge Bowl type activities where
there is more team participation. These activities are more efficent for
teachers strapped for time. I won't go into the argument of whether they as
effectively instill scientific learning. That can be argued both ways and is
somewhat of an academic argument. The clear fact is there are simply many
more competing activities facing teachers than they have had in the past.

5. We are not reaching many teachers who would benefit from our meetings and
from our membership. However, many of these teachers are afraid of coming
for fear "we" will find out how little they know. Reaching the people (both
high school and college) who never attend a meeting is a difficult task and
may be more dependent on our individual efforts to build membership. The
section can help with this but ultimately it comes down to each of us
individually to become acquinted with those who are not attending.

6. We do have a marketing problem. Information about the section is not
readily available. Our web site is confusing and does little to encourage a
"drop in" visitor from investigating more. We do need to continue snail mail
mailings and we do need to maintain a snail mail mailing list along with
e-mail contacts.

7. It would be good to restructure the Spring meeting. If we have workshops,
they cannot compete against the talks. Preferably have the workshops on
Saturday afternoon. Friday afternoons, evenings are also available but my
impression is it is difficult for many teachers to get away early enough to
attend on Friday. It is certainly difficult for me. The current model of an
ice-breaker, demo show and tell seems to work well. Saturday afternoon
workshops makes for a long day for the host but it will make it far more
attractive to the participants knowing they don't have to choose one over
the other. I would suggest making the workshops more focused on training and
review of some physics topic. They need to be hands on where participants
are expected to use, or learn, physics. They don't have to be post doc level
sessions. They just need to be simple straight forward and to the point.
This way, those who are unsure wheteher they want to be there find the
workshop beneficial and rewarding. Taking a piece of equipment home is the
carrot and should not be the primary goal of the workshop. Time will tell
whether such a model will be successful.

8. I think a Fall activity might be very useful. It is a long time between
annual meetings. The smart thing may be combine our efforts with the
Academy's. Perhaps we make a committment to support them by providing some
talks and perhaps workshops at their Fall meeting.  I would encourage
pursuing some kind of supporting activity though I am not so sure I would
want it to be a joint meeting. One benefit of doing this is we might reach
some of the cross-discipline teachers who feel too insecure or are too busy
to attend a separate INAAPT meeting. Perhaps we can nominate someone to
provide laison with the academy to find out in more detail what they have in
mind. Fall is not a good time for me but I would certainly make a strong
effort to arrange to be there to give a presentation, workshop or whatever.
Physics has historically been under represented at these meetings, to the
detriment of both the Academy and the INAAPT. There could be some good
synergy here.

Dan

Dan Beeker
Undergraduate Physics Lab Coordinator

Swain West 115
Physics Department, Indiana University
727 E. 3rd Street
Bloomington, IN 47405
Phone: (812) 855-5903
Fax (812) 855-5533
debeeker at indiana.edu 

-----Original Message-----
From: inaapt-bounces at inaapt.org [mailto:inaapt-bounces at inaapt.org] On Behalf
Of Conlon, Julie A
Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 1:13 PM
To: rtarara at saintmarys.edu; steve at spvi.com; Inaapt at inaapt.org
Subject: Re: [INAAPT] INAAPT meeting

Rick, I really appreciate your perceptions.  I agree fully with the
location, and this was what I was hoping to gain support with on Sat.  I
feel strongly that it would enhance INAAPT to hold the meeting centrally and
at the same location each year.  I suugested Purdue as the annual site, not
because of its central location, but because most/all other professional
groups (biology, earth and atmospheric, chemistry) meet at Purdue and Purdue
supports the groups by handling mailings, websites, etc.  To my knowlege,
Purdue is the only college/university that has 6 full-time outeach
coordinators in the College of Science.  We dedicate ourselves FULL TIME to
the needs of K-12 teachers. 

More importantly, last year I gained support to pay entirely for the costs
of the meeting, including $100 apiece awards (this year this equated to
$300) and all the food--a full supper on Fri, breakfast, lunch.  I have no
reason not to think I couldn't raise these funds from Purdue alumni if
Purdue hosted the meetings, because the particular individual and the
company he owns is supportive of physics education.

The complaints I heard at Saturday's meeting were coming not from those who
have actively participated in executing a meeting. 

But, no matter what, we must begin to think out of a box that isn't working
well.  One idea the team of outreach coordinators had was to TRY hosting all
the professional organizations on one day so teachers from a school might
travel together.  Will it work?  We don't know--we haven't tried it.  I do
know that if 6 outreach coordinators are all working to invite teachers, it
could work.  There may be other innovative ideas.  We need to do some
creative problem solving.

Julie

----- Original Message -----
From: inaapt-bounces at inaapt.org <inaapt-bounces at inaapt.org>
To: Steve Spicklemire <steve at spvi.com>; inaapt at inaapt.org
<inaapt at inaapt.org>
Sent: Thu Apr 26 12:01:42 2007
Subject: Re: [INAAPT] INAAPT meeting

Let me discuss just the logistics of the meeting.

IF--big IF, we continue to think of the yearly meeting as a 1-day, drive in,
drive out meeting, then for maximum coverage the meeting should always be in
Indianapolis.  Indy is no more than 3 hours away from any point in the
state--well the south-west may be a problem until Mitch builds his highway!
The other three corners of the state are linked by interstates and the
central north and south areas are only 100-120 miles away even though the
roads have so many stoplights that it takes the 3 hours.

To really accommodate this, I would suggest a 10-4 or even 10-5 time frame
for the meeting.  Starting later to allow people to come in from the corners
without leaving at 4AM and now, thanks to DST (and Mitch), late April
meetings would still get people home before dark.

Let me also suggest a change (or perhaps return) to a format that would have
3 hours of contributed talks--concurrent sessions (but not too many)--a
lunch break with awards--then either a single high interest topical talk,
two or three concurrent workshops, or break-up into topical round-table
discussion groups.  End the day with the business meeting.  The afternoon
program could rotate through the different forms, or always be the same,
depending on interest.  (A survey of members might help determine that.)

I would still offer a Friday evening optional session for those who can and
want to arrive early and stay overnight.

Moving the meeting around the state serves some good purposes, but only if
we can actually get more people in the region to come.  In the past that was
not really the case.  We might get 10 regional people and then the 30-40
regulars no matter where we went -- We've been at Tri-State, Saint Mary's,
Calumet, Hanover, etc.  Unless we gave someone an award and immediately
drafted them into the officer ranks, we seldom saw any of the '10' newbies
again.  So as much as I enjoy going to other campuses (discovered Madison
Indiana through a meeting at Hanover), I would say that Indianapolis offers
the best chance of attracting a 50 person crowd.  However, I agree with the
comment that we need to do some recruiting and some advertising--much on a
personal basis--to get more High School teachers to come.  The cadre of
University and College types that have been regulars is getting thinned out
through retirement (and worse), and so there may be the need for some arm
twisting with younger AAPT members at those institutions.

Joint meetings can be great, but since we would really be in the position of
needing to go to Illinois or go to Ohio for such meetings (having gotten
both states to come here in the past--Purdue and Ball State) and such
meetings would necessarily be two day affairs, you have travel and lodging
to worry about.  Will people go that far and spend the money?

Just my thoughts,

Rick

***************************
Richard W. Tarara
Professor of Physics
Saint Mary's College
Notre Dame, IN
rtarara at saintmarys.edu
******************************
Free Physics Software
PC & Mac
www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara/software.html
*******************************

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