The American Association of Physics Teachers has a cadre of master teachers/trainers that are willing to come to your district, state, or region to provide professional development for teachers of physics and physical science in grades K-12, these master teachers are PTRAs. The Physics Teaching Resource Agents (PTRA) are master physics teachers that provide professional development in STEM, NGSS, physics, and physical science for teachers in grades K-12. The program has been providing high quality professional development for over 35 years and has influenced thousands of teachers and increased the academic understanding and success for countless students. A timeline of the historical events of PTRA are written in this document PTRA History rev.
To celebrate the 35+ years of PTRA, we made 2 videos documenting the impact of PTRAs on AAPT and the physics community in general. The videos can be found on our YouTube Channel. The short video (5 minutes) can be found at the following link https://youtu.be/-VsAkLSf5F4
This video is intended to be distributed to interested districts or funders as to the value of the professional development we offer and our rich and valued history of success.
The longer video (20 min) documents more of what was done in specific years and has pics of some of the earlier years. It is on the YouTube link https://youtu.be/iHOtx6Xa1HQ.
The PTRA program was awarded the 2011 APS Excellence in Physics Education Award. The award recognizes and honors a team or group of individuals (such as a collaboration), or exceptionally a single individual, who have exhibited a sustained commitment to excellence in physics education.
The PTRA program was supported by NSF for many programs over the past 35 years, including the Rural Initiative from 2002-2009. Highlights of the research from the Rural Initiative are summarized in the APS presentation below. APS Award ppt
Currently the focus is on developing resources to support student learning in areas such as quantum, black holes, and other relevant content. A workshop was held in 2016 that was supported by AIP. Meggers Project Quantum
There is substantial documentation that students of teachers trained by PTRAs will be more successful than other teachers. If your district or school would like to provide the best professional development possible for physics, then contact us and we will be happy to explore options. If you are wanting to attend a workshop, check out the links under workshops for your area or email us ([email protected]).
The range of topics available are virtually limitless and include all content areas, NGSS (Next Generation Science Standards), how to integrate STEM into curricula for all grade levels, and engineering design. Workshops can be for half a day, a full day, or multiple days.
We look forward to working with you.
If you have attended one of our workshops, please fill out the information form http://