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AAPT Winter Meeting 2006 |
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Section Officers' Exchange
The meeting was called to order by Randy Peterson. Randy reminded us that the alternate site for this meeting had been New Orleans. Delegates and visitors were asked to stand, introduce themselves, and identify their sections. A sign-in sheet was circulated. The section rep from the new Alaska section was welcomed, as were section officers from Hawaii.
Karen Johnson spoke of the Executive Board Planning Retreat scheduled for June of 2006. Karen handed out a one-page summary, and invited ideas from sections as to what the board should be considering during the retreat. Members may download a questionnaire by emailing Karen.
The remainder of the meeting was devoted to sharing best and worst practices from section meetings. Section meetings range from 20 to 400 delegates. A total of about 2500 delegates attended AAPT section meetings in 2005. A complete report on these practices will be sent out by AAPT at a future date. A sample section meeting program from the Ohio section was distributed.
Here follow some notes that I made during the discussion:
Best Practices:
- joint meetings with other groups
- "show and tell" demo sessions (mentioned several times)
- reduce meeting fee to $5,
- provide snacks
- additional food for sale
Worst Practices:
- bad choice of meeting venue
- too many research papers
- not enough focus on teaching
Other Concerns:
- need to attract community college teachers
- science organizations (like STAO in Ontario) compete for scarce PD opportunities, especially at the high school level
- need a way to reach large numbers of teachers easily through email
- More advice on planning section meetings is in the Handbook for Local Sections.