The Physics Teacher Resource Agent Program (PTRA)

The focus of the AAPT's PhysicsTeacher Resource Agent program (PTRA) is to select, train and support experienced physics teachers who serve as mentors to less-experienced physics teachers from their communities. It has become a highly recognized piece of infrastructure in the physics teaching community, offering a single program point of contact for high school physics teachers across the country.

The Campaign has provided funds to the PTRA program to support initiation of workshops in select urban areas. These workshops allow teachers to examine issues related to teaching and learning physics such as leadership, classroom organization, physics content, teaching techniques, trends in science education and equity issues. Examples of specific topics addressed are The Role of the Graphing Calculator, Demonstrations in Introductory Physics, Lightwave Communication, and Electrostatics, and Active Physics in the classroom. Participating school districts have played a key role in encouraging their physics teachers to participate in these workshops. A sizeable portion of teachers attending the workshops are minority and/or teach minority students.

Additional information can be found at AAPT's website: http://www.aapt.org/PTRA/