Amber Sammons, 2019 AAPT Teacher Professional Development Intern

Biography

SPS Chapter: Illinois State University

I am a rising senior at Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois. I am majoring in Physics, in the Physics Teacher Education sequence. Too often I’ve seen students who are getting a poor quality education, specifically in STEM subjects, and by becoming a high school physics teacher, I hope that I will be able to help my students see possibilities they might not have before. If I hadn’t a had physics teacher that was willing to go the extra mile to help me develop a deeper understanding and connection to physics, I wouldn’t be on the path I am today without that. I hope to be able to do that for some of my future students. I’m excited to be a part of this program and use this experience to better myself as a future educator and physics student!

Even though my studies keep me pretty busy, I try to stay involved in things outside of the classroom. I’ve been involved with Physics Education Research for three years s. During that s period I have attended several sectional and national meetings of the American Association of Physics Teachers. Additionally, I have had the opportunity to make several presentations, and have been a coauthor on two refereed papers on our work. I am also a tutor and undergraduate teaching assistant for many of the general education physics courses offered at Illinois State. I enjoy helping people understand physics. Recently, I received a grant from the American Physical Society to help my university form a Women in Physics group, an endeavor that I am hoping will help more women find interest and belonging in a male-dominated field.

Internship

Host: American Association of Physics Teachers

Project

Abstract

Outside of political science courses, it’s not often that you are taught what sort of influence we might have on the state of our country. When studying to be a teacher, you learn to have confidence in your knowledge and ability, but you are hardly ever told that you can have an impact that extends far outside the classroom. AAPT and AIP have worked together to help create a program of Master Teacher Leader Policy Fellows that come out to Washington, D.C., from all over the country, to learn how policy functions at the federal level and how it can be brought back down to the state and local levels as well. While this will mostly be focusing on how the teacher policy fellows have been observed taking charge on making changes in politics and what their outcomes have been and can be, it’s important to know that we all have a voice, and there are ways that can be used to make sure it’s heard.

Final Presentation

Internship Blog

Getting Started

After months of waiting, the day had finally arrived. I was in Washington, D.C., meeting my fellow interns, and starting my internship. I was so scared that I would miss my flight or that I would get lost trying to get to the dorm, but everything worked out and I made here safe and sound.

Immediately I started in on the task of learning everyone’s names. All the interns are extremely friendly, and we share a lot of common interests. Many of us went and explored some of the National Mall and the memorials there on Monday. After some exploring, we went to see some of the Memorial Day parade. Everything was so fantastic, the only drawback being that it’s quite hot and humid here in D.C., but I persevered. Later in the week, another group of us went to Jazz in the Park, got dinner, and had a blast. We’ve also been getting together a fair amount and just talking about what we’ve all been doing with our individual internships. It’s been amazing getting to know my fellow interns and learning about their journeys to this point. We all come from such different backgrounds and locations all over the country, and despite all being interested in physics, we have such unique destinations that we want to take our expertise to. Some of us want to teach, some of us want to do research, some of us want to write, and some of us want to go into policy-making. I didn’t realize how versatile physics really is until speaking with everyone here.

Exploring and getting to know my peers was super enjoyable, but my favorite part was actually starting the internship. I’m working with AAPT, and for me to get a chance to work with this organization at this point in my career is comparable to someone studying acting staring in a film directed by Steven Spielberg before they graduate from art school. I am truly honored and excited that I get a chance to work with this organization that I’ve been involved in for three years, read many articles coming out of, and have gone to many conferences hosted by them.

Currently I’m working with Robert Hilborn, who is the Associate Executive Officer of AAPT. He’s given me two projects that I can start to work on. I’ve started on one project and am excited to see the final results of it and move on to the second. The first project I’m working on is to look at data from a variety of different sources to find the amount of physics bachelor’s degrees that have been awarded at numerous institutions over the past twenty or so years. We are comparing the number awarded ten years ago and comparing it to the number currently being awarded to see which institutions are seeing a large gain. It’s fascinating and important, and something that can be used to help those numbers grow even larger in the future. I’ve gotten to meet a lot of people in the Statistical Research Center as well to help me obtain more data and advance the project further. We’re also going to be comparing these gains with the gains in the number of physics teachers currently coming out of these institutions.

I’m really excited to see what the coming weeks hold. Whether it’s getting to know the cohort better, exploring more of the city, or doing more work with AAPT, I don’t think I’ll be bored at any point.

Oh the Places You’ll Go

This week was amazing, and it started right from the start. On Monday, my mentor told me that if I wanted to, I could help out Rebecca Vieyra, who was the mentor for previous AAPT SPS interns, prepare for a STEM+C Workshop and even attend some of the workshop. This meant that I would get to go to Phoenix for a couple days and learn about a new coding program that has been and could be utilized in the classroom to improve students’ learning experiences. I’m really excited to see what I can learn from this experience in a few weeks.

Before I could head to Phoenix, I have to do some preparations for that conference and some of the other ones that are coming up this summer. I went to have lunch and discuss some details with Rebecca on Monday, so I could better understand what would be expected of me and any way I could help. She gave me a lot of tasks that I could help her with, and I couldn’t wait to start. I was so excited to talk with her, because she is the reason that I am still on the path I am today. My junior year of high school, I was really worried that studying to be a physics teacher would have been a limiting career, and I wanted to make more of a difference. My physics teacher knew her and got me in contact with her, and after one phone call with her, and hearing about all she did with NASA and AAPT, I wasn’t as worried anymore, and haven’t looked back since. She is currently working with the Organization of American States and doing a lot to improve education across all the Americas, and I got to visit her office for a bit, which was just amazing. Knowing that the path I’m on can lead me not only to helping at a national level, but an international level, really makes me all the more confident in my choice of career.

Bob, my mentor, was out for the majority of the week, preparing for and attending various workshops. Despite his absence, I still had a lot to do. Most of my work the past week has been helping Rebecca to prepare for the upcoming STEM+C Workshop and the Master Teacher Policy Fellowship. I’ve gotten to put my hands into a little bit of everything, creating spreadsheets, making orders, networking/communicating, etc. I thought I would feel more overwhelmed than I did, given how much I had on my plate, but I felt surprising comfortable having so much to do. It was nice being able to learn how to do things I had never done (like use a company credit card) and know that I was working to help AAPT and other physics teachers get the most out of these workshops.

Friday, Rebecca invited me over to her house for dinner and to meet her family. Her family is so nice, and she was an excellent cook. She took me for a walk around the Capitol, and we got to know a little more about each other and our reasons for choosing the path we’re on. We also discussed more about what I should work on to prepare for the workshop and my trip to Phoenix next Sunday. Aside from finishing up the preparations of the STEM+C Workshop this week, and the other SPS events coming up, I’m also excited because I’ll get to talk with Bob about some of my findings in the physics bachelor’s degrees data I’ve been looking at.

A Busy Week

From start to finish, this week has been a wild one. This week at AAPT, I’ve been helping Rebecca to finalize everything for the conference in Phoenix. I’m currently writing this from Phoenix, so as of now, everything is running smoothly. I’m really excited to get to be here as the representative for the American Association of Physics Teachers at the STEM+C workshop, and I’m really grateful that I’ll get a chance to learn this coding language/program while I’m here. I hope that I’ll be able to represent the organization well!

This week I also started to get in on helping a program that AAPT is working on that’s goal is to help with teacher retention for those underrepresented in the physics community. This project was started by Rebecca, Kyrstina (the AAPT intern from last year), and the Master Teacher Leaders from the 2018 cohort. I’m working to help create some posters and information on the initiative so that we can recruit mentors and mentees into the program and work to help grow a welcoming community of those underrepresented teachers of physics. I’m so excited to get to be a part of this, and I can’t wait to see where it goes.

This week was also super fun for all of the social things we got to do. Wednesday, I went out to lunch with Jack Hehn, who is an AAPT fellow and was the one who started this internship program. He is so amazing, and I love getting to talk to him every day and learn from him. At lunch, we talked a lot about both of our journeys to our current points and hearing all that he’s done has just continued to solidify my belief that I’m on the right path for me. Thursday, I went to lunch again with Jack, but this time, we were joined by Susan and Gary White. Both of these people are legends in the American Center for Physics. Gary is a former director of SPS and is the current editor ofThe Physics Teacher. Susan is the Assistant Director of the Statistical Research Center in AIP. I was really excited to get the chance to talk with her about the reports that she has done on high school physics teachers and the state of physics teaching at the high school level. I’m hoping to have better questions prepared for the next time we meet up, because I was a bit overwhelmed getting to meet them that I forgot all that I wanted to ask. That evening, we went on the Odyssey Cruise. It was a blast! The food was amazing, and it was just so much fun getting to dance and hang out with everyone. I was at the same table as the CEO of AIP, which I don’t think many people can say.

Saturday was an especially eventful day. All week, one of the things that I had been working on was helping Jack to prepare for the National Orchestral Institute and Festival that all of the interns would be attending. I was helping to make sure that transportation, food, and where we would be meeting were all properly arranged. I wanted to get there earlier than everybody on Saturday to make sure everything was good to go, so I took the Metro alone. While on the Metro, a group of kids came by and stole my wallet, with everything in it. Needless to say, that made for a hectic night. I still really wanted to go to the concert, so I was given a ride there by a policewoman after they had taken my statement. I was worried that going to a concert so soon after something like that happened would be too much for me, but it wasn’t. Everybody was so nice. Jack, Brad, and all of the interns were just so kind and supportive of me and my struggles. I’m so glad that I get to be a part of this internship and be with such kind, understanding people, that are also so funny and smart.

From Phoenix to the Stars

This week was amazing. It started in sunny and hot Phoenix at the STEM+C Workshop that AAPT was helping to put on. I was going to not only learn about the new coding language and how the program can be used in the classroom, but I was also serving as a representative for AAPT. I really enjoyed my time in Phoenix. It was my first time there, and I could get over the fact that there were no clouds. I also really found the coding language interesting. I’ve been playing around with the program ever since I got back, trying to see what I can get it to do. My favorite part had to be watching all of these seasoned teachers being taken out of their element and taught completely new concepts. Watching how some of them struggled and stumbled learning the language brought me back to the internship I did last summer at a STEM camp with middle schoolers, because despite the significant age and knowledge difference between the two groups, both of them had the same look of wonder and excitement when they were finally able to get their code to work.

After I got back, I slept most of the day. I had taken my first red-eye flight, and I learned that they aren’t super fun, especially when you have to deal with a three-hour time difference. Friday was a little bit more eventful. For a while I had been working on data to help us find out what schools are seeing a large growth in their number of physics students, so that we can eventually find out what they’re doing differently. Because of the bit of chaos of everyone preparing for different events and workshops, my mentor and I hadn’t really had a chance to talk about some of my findings, but we were finally able to sit down and figure out the next steps on what I should look into.

Saturday was by far my favorite day. The interns were all able to participate in Astronomy on the Mall. It was really a special experience getting to see all of these people, ranging from young to old, that were so interested in science and wanting to learn more about astronomy. Joseph and I were in charge of the demonstration that was illustrating that space-time isn’t flat, but it’s curved. Everybody really enjoyed getting to roll marbles around and into our gravity well. The look of excitement on the younger children as they were exploring space-time and comparing the motion to things that they were already familiar with (i.e. the Earth orbiting around the Sun) was incredible. Some of the kids that were out there were so smart, that we decided to add things that they discovered to the demonstrations and explanations, like how a smaller ball will follow a larger one as they both circle the gigantic mass at the center. After we closed up shop at Astronomy on the Mall, several of us went to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs, since all of the Smithsonian museums were open until midnight that night. Even though nothing came to life like in Night at the Museum, it was still fascinating getting to literally walk back in time and see how drastically things can change over a couple hundred million years.

Lots of Introductions

This week was full of introductions and new experiences for everyone. Monday was the first day that I met my official mentor, Mark Hannum, in person. We had been part of group Zoom meetings, but I was finally able to meet him face-to-face. The timing of his first day was hectic. It was the first day of the New Faculty Workshop that is hosted at the American Center for Physics, so the majority of the week was us trying to all of us getting on the same page, while half of the office is missing. We were able to do it though, and we got a lot accomplished in spite of the hecticness involved in the projects going on. We were really focusing up on getting everything ready for the arrival of the policy fellows next Friday and making sure that all of our arrangements are finalized. I’ve participated in several workshops over my career as a student and researcher, but I never really considered how much goes into them until I was helping to organize them myself. I’ll be sure to remember to thank the organizers personally at all of my future workshops.

Aside from getting caught up together on everything related to work and AAPT, Mark and I also had a chance to get to know a little bit more about each other. He taught in D.C. public schools for around nine years, worked at the National Science Foundation for a while, and worked at Thomas Jefferson High School before taking on this position. I was really interested in hearing about all that he’s done and what has gotten him to this position in AAPT. I feel like when I’m studying to be a teacher, nobody ever tells you that there are other job opportunities you can use your abilities for outside of the walls of a school, and seeing and hearing about people who have found those opportunities is really encouraging for me. It was also amazing to hear about all that he has done at Thomas Jefferson, and what a unique teaching environment it is. It’s a school meant for those who excel in STEM fields, so it makes sense that it has some things that most schools wouldn’t, but it’s still wild to hear about it. They have a research journal published yearly with articles by students on topics they’ve researched. One of his students in his neuroscience coursewas published in a recent issue, and I attempted to read the article, but I didn’t understand enough of it to make sense of everything in it! I’m excited to get to know Mark better and continue working with him on all of these projects. I’m really interested in learning more about how it was teaching in Washington D.C.

Mark wasn’t the only introduction I made this week. I also met Lillian McDermott at the New Faculty Workshop, and I might have had to take a moment to quell my excitement. From my involvement in physics education research, I’ve come to know her as the “Mother of PER,” and so getting to meet her and talk to her for a while was just beyond my imagination. My family and best friend also came in this weekend, and I was able to introduce them to all of my mentors at AAPT, as well as a lot of the other interns. Now, when I give them my regular updates on all the wonderful things I’ve been doing, they’ll be able to put names to most of the faces.