Students will review concepts and practices that are covered by the Illinois Physics Teacher Certification Tests.

Survey of career opportunities for physicists in industry, government, and education.  A review of the skills, training, and education required for the various occupations.

Practicum in teaching physics.  Focus is on the underlying concepts in introductory physics courses.  Course is divided into two parts.  Students undergo training in teaching physics as a process of inquiry and then use these methods in the introductory physics classroom.  Students work alongside the instructor for the introductory class.  Weekly readings will come from State and National Standards as well as papers focusing on science education research. 

Apparatus for major demonstrations and laboratories for excellent high school physics programs will be set up, debugged, and implemented while creating experimental notebooks describing principles and operating configurations for successful pedagogy.  Students will work through all demonstrations and experiments and will construct reference notebooks for later use in the classroom.  Some classic experiments may also be carried out.

Methods of teaching physics with an emphasis on conceptual understanding and computational skill.  These will be studied and practiced by students in preparation for teaching in the classroom.  Demonstrations, experiments, problem solving, group work and a variety of research based methodologies will be studied carefully.  The application of National, State, and Professional Standards will be a foundational aspect of this course.

Off-campus placement in secondary level schools in two or more grade levels.  University and cooperating school supervision.  Five full days including seminar for 16 weeks.  No other courses may be taken during the semester of student teaching.