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<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>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.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>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.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>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.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>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.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>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.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>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.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>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.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>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.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>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.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>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.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=761225113-30042007><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2>Dan</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<P><FONT size=2>Dan Beeker<BR>Undergraduate Physics Lab Coordinator<BR><BR>Swain
West 115<BR>Physics Department, Indiana University<BR>727 E. 3rd
Street<BR>Bloomington, IN 47405<BR>Phone: (812) 855-5903<BR>Fax (812)
855-5533<BR>debeeker@indiana.edu</FONT> </P>
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<DIV></DIV>
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader lang=en-us dir=ltr align=left><FONT
face=Tahoma size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B>
inaapt-bounces@inaapt.org [mailto:inaapt-bounces@inaapt.org] <B>On Behalf Of
</B>Conlon, Julie A<BR><B>Sent:</B> Thursday, April 26, 2007 1:13
PM<BR><B>To:</B> rtarara@saintmarys.edu; steve@spvi.com;
Inaapt@inaapt.org<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re: [INAAPT] INAAPT
meeting<BR><BR></FONT></DIV><!-- Converted from text/plain format -->
<P><FONT size=2>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. <BR><BR>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.<BR><BR>The complaints I heard at Saturday's meeting were
coming not from those who have actively participated in executing a
meeting. <BR><BR>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.<BR><BR>Julie<BR><BR><BR>----- Original Message -----<BR>From:
inaapt-bounces@inaapt.org <inaapt-bounces@inaapt.org><BR>To: Steve
Spicklemire <steve@spvi.com>; inaapt@inaapt.org
<inaapt@inaapt.org><BR>Sent: Thu Apr 26 12:01:42 2007<BR>Subject: Re:
[INAAPT] INAAPT meeting<BR><BR>Let me discuss just the logistics of the
meeting.<BR><BR>IF--big IF, we continue to think of the yearly meeting as a
1-day, drive in,<BR>drive out meeting, then for maximum coverage the meeting
should always be in<BR>Indianapolis. Indy is no more than 3 hours away
from any point in the<BR>state--well the south-west may be a problem until
Mitch builds his highway!<BR>The other three corners of the state are linked
by interstates and the<BR>central north and south areas are only 100-120 miles
away even though the<BR>roads have so many stoplights that it takes the 3
hours.<BR><BR>To really accommodate this, I would suggest a 10-4 or even 10-5
time frame<BR>for the meeting. Starting later to allow people to come in
from the corners<BR>without leaving at 4AM and now, thanks to DST (and Mitch),
late April<BR>meetings would still get people home before dark.<BR><BR>Let me
also suggest a change (or perhaps return) to a format that would have<BR>3
hours of contributed talks--concurrent sessions (but not too many)--a<BR>lunch
break with awards--then either a single high interest topical talk,<BR>two or
three concurrent workshops, or break-up into topical round-table<BR>discussion
groups. End the day with the business meeting. The
afternoon<BR>program could rotate through the different forms, or always be
the same,<BR>depending on interest. (A survey of members might help
determine that.)<BR><BR>I would still offer a Friday evening optional session
for those who can and<BR>want to arrive early and stay
overnight.<BR><BR>Moving the meeting around the state serves some good
purposes, but only if<BR>we can actually get more people in the region to
come. In the past that was<BR>not really the case. We might get 10
regional people and then the 30-40<BR>regulars no matter where we went --
We've been at Tri-State, Saint Mary's,<BR>Calumet, Hanover, etc. Unless
we gave someone an award and immediately<BR>drafted them into the officer
ranks, we seldom saw any of the '10' newbies<BR>again. So as much as I
enjoy going to other campuses (discovered Madison<BR>Indiana through a meeting
at Hanover), I would say that Indianapolis offers<BR>the best chance of
attracting a 50 person crowd. However, I agree with the<BR>comment that
we need to do some recruiting and some advertising--much on a<BR>personal
basis--to get more High School teachers to come. The cadre
of<BR>University and College types that have been regulars is getting thinned
out<BR>through retirement (and worse), and so there may be the need for some
arm<BR>twisting with younger AAPT members at those institutions.<BR><BR>Joint
meetings can be great, but since we would really be in the position
of<BR>needing to go to Illinois or go to Ohio for such meetings (having
gotten<BR>both states to come here in the past--Purdue and Ball State) and
such<BR>meetings would necessarily be two day affairs, you have travel and
lodging<BR>to worry about. Will people go that far and spend the
money?<BR><BR>Just my
thoughts,<BR><BR>Rick<BR><BR>***************************<BR>Richard W.
Tarara<BR>Professor of Physics<BR>Saint Mary's College<BR>Notre Dame,
IN<BR>rtarara@saintmarys.edu<BR>******************************<BR>Free Physics
Software<BR>PC &
Mac<BR>www.saintmarys.edu/~rtarara/software.html<BR>*******************************<BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>INAAPT
mailing list<BR>INAAPT@inaapt.org<BR><A
href="http://mailman.spvi.com/mailman/listinfo/inaapt">http://mailman.spvi.com/mailman/listinfo/inaapt</A><BR></FONT></P></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>