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Wisconsin Section, American Association
of Physics Teachers Minutes of the Annual Business Meeting October 11, 2008, at Chippewa Falls High School, Chippewa Falls, WI Due mostly to technical
difficulties during the talks, lunch was delivered on time, but we had to
patiently wait for the talks to finish while knowing that our lunch boxes were
in the back of the room. Stomachs
were growling. Then we distributed
the lunch boxes and chatted for a while… Meeting Start Time: 12:50 pm (a little late!). President Melissa Vigil presiding. Her first order of business was to thank
Paul Nevins for a job well-done in bringing WAPT back to a high school for the
first time in a long time. These
thanks go to all o the people working behind the scenes, too, especially since
Paul’s surgery kept him out of commission for a while this Fall. 1.
Minutes of the last meeting (October 27th, 2007) – Erik
Hendrickson Motion
to accept the minutes as corrected (Erik mistakenly gave UW – Stevens
Point a new building, when the new building actually belongs to UW –
Platteville, under Section 8 – Future Meetings) was made by Jim Madsen,
seconded by Matt Evans. Motion
passed unanimously by a voice vote. 2.
Treasurer’s Report for 2007-8 – Erik Hendrickson Please see the full text,
including a nice graph, of Erik’s Report, but a few items were highlighted… A. It was reported that our 1-yr CD earned
$164.39 last year. Expenses were
described briefly. B. We had many “first timers” once again
this year, and the first 10 of them to register received up to $50 off of the
cost of the meeting, plus travel reimbursement. It was mentioned that this year when the CD is due, we will
need to take out some of the funds to make sure we can cover these costs again
next year. C. Motion to accept the printed
treasurer’s report as corrected (a typo was found regarding today’s date) made
by David Tamres, seconded by Ken Mendelson. The report was accepted with no objection. 3.
Section Representative’s Report – Jim Mallmann Please see the full text of
Jim’s Report, but he highlighted a few items… A. Jim pointed out that at this coming
summer’s meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan, there will be an Advanced Laboratory
Topical Conference. We heard about
this from one of our presenters at today’s meeting – Lowell McCann is one
of the coordinators of this topical conference. All are encouraged to submit proposals and ideas, and, of
course, to attend! B. David Cook is the new Vice President of
AAPT. He’s from Lawrence
University, right here in Wisconsin.
He has some issues that he would like to bring to the forefront of AAPT
conversations and conferences. One
of these is the concern that so much of our national meetings are centered on
HOW we teach physics in our classrooms, and not on WHAT we teach in our
classrooms. He hopes to see more
sessions at future national meetings focus on the latter. C. Jim noted that the Winter AAPT Meeting
is in Chicago this year (2/12-16) and that it is combined with AAAS. Chicago is an excellent city and
relatively close to home. He
encourages everyone to attend. D. He reminded us that if anyone would
like to serve on any of the national committees, he could nominate you. E. Jim is glad that we plan our meetings
so far in advance, since this makes it easy for national-level officers to plan
to come to our local meetings.
This year, our meeting coincided with an officer meeting in Washington,
DC, though, so no one could make it.
We look forward to having a visit next year. F. The report was accepted without objection. 4. High
School Representative’s Report – Judy Schmidt Please see the full text of
Judy’s Report, but she highlighted a few items… A. Judy noted that this will be her LAST
HS Rep Report. B. Teacher Preparation Committee. Preparing our future high school
physics teachers is a hot topic nationally. What are we doing?
Gary will be meeting with DPI in 2 weeks. He has a list of questions, but you could send him
suggestions, as well. Minnesota
has published their Dept of Ed requirements on-line. Here is the address for the Science requirements, for
example: https://webrh12.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/rules/?id=8710.4750. Wisconsin has its 10 Teacher Standards
(general): http://dpi.wi.gov/tepdl/stand10.html. Wisconsin has also published its
content guidelines: http://dpi.wi.gov/tepdl/iheguidelines.html. The hard questions come up when it is
time to discuss the teacher education requirements for certification or
re-certification in the smaller rural school districts. Gary will open up this discussion and
report back to us. C. Judy noted that this will be her LAST
HS Rep Report. She is extremely
happy about this, as is her husband, but WAPT is saddened by the fact that this
is her last report. Whoever tries
to follow in her footsteps (Gary:
hint, hint…) will have a tough act to follow. D. The report was accepted without
objection. 5.
Two-Year College Representative’s Report – Roger Hanke Again, please see Roger’s
full written report, what follows are his highlights… A. This year marks the first year of full
implementation of the new state-wide list of approved physics courses for
associate degree programs in Wisconsin’s 2-year colleges. For detailed descriptions of these
courses, please see: www.curriculumbank.org. The next step is to re-evaluate the process
that is used to get courses on this list, since some of the current courses
just showed up on the list without any consultation. B. Roger thinks other 2-year college
physics instructors should be made aware of these changes and should join in
the discussion, but there are just so many people who cannot make it to the
meetings. It was mentioned that
attracting physics instructors of all types will be a topic soon to be
discussed in the New Business section of today’s meeting. C. The report was accepted without
objection. 6.
Committee Reports a) Awards Committee
– Matt Evans The
only award that was given out this year was presented at last night’s banquet: Jim
Madsen: Service to and Excellence
in the Teaching of Physics at the College Level
Thunderous
applause for a marvelous job!! If you think there’s someone deserving out there, make
sure to share this with any member of the Awards Committee. Several questions arose: What about more high school awards? Sure thing! If you know of someone doing special things at the high
school level, please nominate them.
For example, there are several “share” groups in the state (for example,
one at SPASH and MAPS in Milwaukee), maybe these leaders need to be
recognized. It would be great to
have them come to the meeting to accept their awards and give a presentation on
what they are working on. What
about nominating someone who is not a WAPT member? Sure thing!
Again, it would be great to have these excellent educators come to the
meeting to accept their awards and give a presentation on what they are working
on. b)
Publications Committee – Jim Madsen A newsletter?
We only had 2 entries. We
need more submissions next year!
Jim promises to beat the bushes this year and he boldly states that
there WILL BE a publication by next year’s meeting. c)
Workshops Committee – Melissa Vigil There were a number of good workshops this year! Hooray!! The demo-sharing workshop had 10-12 people, which seemed to
be the best-attended. There were 6
workshops overall. A concern was raised: Sparse attendance in the workshops. It seems that many people signed up but
then they did not attend. This is
not good when there are limits on the number of participants due to materials
issues. Is this due to not
charging anything? We might need
to change the registration process back to requiring that a fee to be charged
for each workshop, even if it is just a small amount ($5 or $10) to hold your
place. Other ideas: Hold workshops on Friday morning and/or
Saturday afternoon that do not conflict with the oral presentations. As you can see, the Workshops Committee will have lots
to talk about this coming year! d)
Assessment Committee – Paul Nevins The committee met and went through the State Standards
for the 10th-grade content exam with a fine-toothed comb. They were happy to see that the test
matched up with the standards quite well. What is the next project for the committee? They are going to look at the overall
content topics in the State Standards and see if they are appropriately aligned
with the teacher licensing questions/procedures. They will report on this project next year. 7. Old
Business a) 1st Timer
Awards – Erik Hendrickson Erik reported that this was the second year WAPT gave
out “1st timer awards” to the first 10 people who registered for
their first WAPT meeting ever. For
people who were driving to the meeting and needed lodging, the awards were
$50. For local attendees, the
award covered the cost of the meeting (dues, lunch, etc.) and mileage costs. Erik asked the assembled crew: Should we continue to do this in the
future? The answer was a
resounding YES!! We saw many new
faces again this year. Make sure
to keep advertising this. Invite
new people from your schools to attend and sign up for this perk! A suggestion came from the group: WAPT should go to WSST! We should make sure there is a physics
presence!! The suggestion was that
a group of us should go. People
asked if the Workshop Committee could put together a workshop for the meeting. The next WSST meeting is March 5
– 7 at the Hilton City Center in Milwaukee. If you do not know what WSST is, check out their website: http://www.wsst.org/. Another suggestion came from those assembled: What about attracting college
professors? It was suggested that
Erik (the Chair of the Physics & Astronomy Department at UWEC) should send
a welcoming e-mail to the department chairs of each of the colleges/universities
in the state next year. He could
also encourage graduate students to attend, as well (at least from those
departments that have a graduate program). One idea would be to try to offer a workshop on what is
required to obtain a faculty position. b) Website – Matt
Evans Asked for suggestions for changes/additions… A contact list of faculty/instructors at all Wisconsin
colleges/universities and high schools (Matt mentioned that the contact list of
high school instructors will be incredibly difficult to put together). A list of links to each college/university and high
school in Wisconsin. Matt
said that he will work on this & report back next year. c) Mini-Grant: New Educator Workshop – Judy
Schmidt Judy commented that Matt did all of the paperwork (and
still has some more to do!). The
workshop had room for 20 new educator participants, 11 people signed up, but
only 7 came on day one and 7 on day two (there was an overlap of 4
people). They gave out a new book (which
they thought was a great resource for new teachers), they distributed Prentice
Hall & Dark Matter materials.
All of these items were well-received and appreciated by the teachers. A comment from the gallery: What about bringing this type of workshop to WSST this
Spring? Judy and Gary and Matt
said that they would check on the possibilities. 8. Future
Meeting Sites 2009: UW – Whitewater, October 30th/31st.
Note: Back to the last
weekend of the month. Stephen P.
Maran (author of Astronomy for Dummies,
Galileo's New Universe: The Revolution in
Our Understanding of the Cosmos, and several others) has been invited to be
our guest speaker on Friday evening.
The College is helping to pay to bring him in and his presentation will
be open to the public and given in a campus auditorium. It was noted that the department has
three lab rooms set up with Pasco equipment and computers and LabVIEW, just in
case people wanted to start thinking about possible workshops that could be
created/run. Please pass along
your ideas to the Workshop Committee members. 2010: UW – River Falls, October 29th/30th
or October 10th/11th? They will investigate the
possibility of a joint meeting with Minnesota. The idea would be to try to get lots of Minnesota HS
teachers to come to show them how a good relationship with local
colleges/universities can be a great source of useful and interesting
interactions. They are still
exploring the question of which date would be better. 2011: UW – Stevens Point? They would like to start their own
10-year cycle of hosting WAPT. 2012: UW – Platteville? They will have a new building that they
would like to show off! 2013: UW – Eau Claire (their turn in
the approximate 10-year cycle)? These last few sites could depend upon whether or not
WAPT wanted to make sure that we did not have back-to-back meetings in a similar
part of the state. Anyone else
want to chime in as the host during some of these years or future years? Each potential “host” school should
also discuss which set of dates they would like to have the meeting. The northern high schools have teacher
conventions during the end of the 2nd week of October, while the
southern schools have their teacher conventions during the end of the last week
of October. It did seem like more
high school teachers made it this year from the northern high schools. Something to think about. 9. New
Business A. Inviting
National Officers We need to keep inviting the National Officers to our
state meeting each year. This
year, it just happened that one of their business meetings in DC was on the
same weekend as WAPT. Someone
suggested that they could possibly have their own “business meeting” while they
attend WAPT, but it would probably be difficult to get all of them to come to
Wisconsin. B. Improving Publicity & Participation 10.
Elections (Otherwise known as the railroading
portion of the meeting!) High
School Representative (entering the 1st year of 2-year term): Gary Baier He was elected by a voice vote after being nominated
by Matt Evans and seconded by Jim Madsen.
Gary wanted it noted that there was one “no” vote. Two-Year College Representative (entering
the 1st year of 2-year term):
Roger Hanke He
was elected by a voice vote after being nominated by Matt Evans and seconded by
Jim Madsen. Awards Committee – Past-President: Melissa Vigil She
was elected by a voice vote after being nominated automatically as Past
President. Awards Committee – College
Representative (2-year term): Nathan
Miller He
was elected by a voice vote after being nominated by Matt Evans and seconded by
Paul Nevins. Workshops Committee – President-Elect
(1-year term): Steven Sahyun He
was elected by decree, since UW - Whitewater is hosting next year’s meeting. Workshops
Committee – High School Representative: Nick Gagnon He
was elected by a voice vote after being nominated by Paul Nevins and seconded
by Matt Evans. Workshops
Committee – College Representative:
Brad Hinaus He was elected by a voice vote after being nominated
by Erik Hendrickson and seconded by Matt Evans. Publications/Promotions Committee –
High School Representative: Larry
Stookey He was elected by a voice vote after being nominated
by Matt Evans and seconded by David Tamres (who also happened to be swatting a
fly). Vice President, Program Chair, for 2009: Steven Sahyun He was elected by a voice vote after being nominated
by Melissa Vigil and seconded by Jim Madsen. A loud uproar if clapping ensued! Thank you, Steven & UW – Whitewater!! See you next year! President: Paul Nevins He was elected by a very loud voice vote after being
nominated by Matt Evans and seconded by Erik Hendrickson. Not needed for elections this
year… Secretary/Treasurer (entering the 3rd
year of 3-year term): Erik
Hendrickson Section Representative (entering the 3rd
year of 3-year term): Jim Mallmann Publications/Promotions
Committee – College Representative (1 year remaining): Ken Mendelson Publications/Promotions
Committee – Chair (1 year remaining): Jim Madsen 11.
Closing Remarks & Adjournment The
following motion was made by Erik Hendrickson and seconded by Matt Evans: A big THANK YOU
to Paul Nevins & Chippewa Falls High School for an absolutely WONDERFUL MEETING!!! The motion unanimously
passed, as I could attest from the thunderously loud clapping of hands and pounding
on the cafeteria tables! A big “Thank
You!” to Melissa Vigil for running such an efficient Business
Meeting! This motion unanimously
passed, as well. !!!See everyone at UW- Whitewater next year!!! And remember that the meeting is back to the end of
October! Matt (the ever cost-conscious
WAPT member) collected name tags from everyone as they left the building. The meeting ended at 2:27 pm
(Whew! That’s a long meeting!!). Several of the remaining members were
heading off to a “tour” of the Leinie’s Lodge…
Respectfully submitted, Erik
Hendrickson Secretary/Treasurer |
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