Active Physics Teacher Community

This project develops, implements, and studies a dual model of professional development that adds an online platform to traditional professional development: the Active Physics Teacher Community (APTC). Researchers investigate the effectiveness of the dual model of professional development by comparing teachers’ mastery of physics concepts, their ability to recognize and address students’ misconceptions, their pacing of physics lessons, and their students’ level of understanding of physics concepts as a result of participating in one of four treatment groups: (1) traditional professional development, (2) the APTC-only experience, (3) the APTC experience combined with traditional professional development, and (4) a comparison group that receives no professional development at all.