The External Studies in Physics Certification (ESPyC) program has been offered by the Department of Physics at Indiana University of Pennsylvania since 1989 as a correspondance course program. This ESPyC program has been replaced by a new Web-based Instruction for Physics Certification program. Most of the features used in the ESPyC program will be used in the new WINPC program eventhough the medium of instruction is different. The study materials below is still a useful study guide. The new study guide for the WINPC program will be available in August 1998. Please contact Dr. V. Wijekumar at 724-357-4588/2370 or send an email to him for further details about the program.

1. INTRODUCTION TO ESPyC

ESPyC stands for External Studies for Physics Certification, and represents just that. The entire program is an experimental mechanism to address a long-standing problem in the secondary schools via a novel mechanism. There simply aren't enough physics teachers to go around! Particularly to the large number of smaller, relatively isolated school districts, many of which simply cannot find certified individuals to cover one, or a few, physics classes out of an entire teaching schedule.

The goal of the ESPyC staff is a simple one - find a mechanism to make certified physics teachers more available to schools having a competitive disadvantage in hiring. The program you are about to begin addresses that problem.

ESPyC provides the opportunity to complete the collegiate coursework required for certification, beyond the initial year of college physics, for individuals already holding certification in some closely related area of study. Following your selection for this program you were provided with an individual analysis of your college transcripts and our comments on your background preparation. We completed these to alert you to our concerns about your completing the coursework and to begin a pattern of open communication between us. What we are about to begin is not a casual undertaking, nor is it easy. However, it also does not require superhuman capabilities to succeed. Completion of the program is possible for most individuals with a reasonable level of background preparation and a great deal of determination. There will be times when the work seems difficult - because it is! foranybody, at any time! You will simply have the disadvantage of having fewer immediate resources to "lean on" in moments of despair and have to learn to "tough it out" and stay with the coursework until all of your questions get answered and you are back to understanding the material. The materials, mechanisms for help, encouragement - these we can all provide. The determination to persist must come from you. With all problems - talk to us!

2. MATHEMATICAL INTRODUCTION

Your mathematics background may be limited, or it may be out of date. We cannot generalize here for all the participants in ESPyC since each has quite a unique record and raises unique concerns among the staff. There are several general statements about mathematics and the coursework which must be kept in mind:

We begin assuming a reasonably decent knowledge of algebra, trigonometric functions and some experience with vectors - but we do provide review materials even with these topics.

We assume that you have had mathematics through simple calculus at some time in your past. We also assume that for many participants it would be charitable to refer to this background as "rusty."

Physics is very oriented toward the mathematical expression of ideas, and you will simply have to get used to it, whether that is pleasant or not!

We plan to take a long, incremental redevelopment of familiar mathematical skills you should have already seen in the first half of the first semester. Later we will introduce some you may not have seen.

Mathematical development will not be complete until the end of the first two semesters of the course, but it will be essentially complete by then.

Mostly, we want you to be able to read mathematical ideas from early on, but we do not expect you to do any work in problems or derivations using any topics from the calculus until much later. We will re- introduce the topics we need as we go.

Do not be frightened by strange looking mathematical formulations at some distant point in the text. Many mathematical statements have to be studied, not simply scanned, even by people with degrees in the field, before they understand what is being said. After all, a first grade reader in Japanese could probably intimidate all of us. Worry about the current work now and let the later stuff work itself out.

Remember, you are not alone. You are just remote from us and will have to work harder at getting help. You must be the judge of how much starting help you need in the area of mathematics and use the materials accordingly.

You should have access to a good calculus text early in the first course, as well as a text in introductory college physics. From time to time you will probably need to review ideas from both sources which are mentioned in your coursework but not explained there. Understand that this is not unusual. Students on campus who have never interrupted their studies must do exactly the same sort of thing frequently. In addition you will need a calculator with trig functions and logarithms for use in your work.

HOW TO DO A PROBLEM

A regular part of your work will be the submission of homework assignments. It may have been some time since you have worked out physics problems. This is a necessary skill. To serve as a guide, the section following is a copy of the four page discussion entitled "Problem Solving in Physics" from the textbook College Physics by G. Buckwalter & D. Riban (McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1987). This text has the advantage of being written in a familiar style for readers of these pages, since it has the same authors.

3. INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSEWORK

Weekly Assignments

All materials in ESPyC are blocked out in batches of one week's work, and all communications will be done on a weekly basis. We want you to get into the habit of blocking out your schedule to make the course you are taking a regular part of your activities. This means that every week you will mail to us a completed set of problems and computer disk. Every week we will telephone you for a discussion of the materials of that week. Every week we will mail to you a graded set of homework problems.

Learning physics is a long task. One of the greatest enemies to successful completion of campus courses in physics is a lack of the discipline necessary to stay current with the material of the course. Some students seem to have the ability to ignore most courses until nearing some key time, like when a test approaches, and then study it rapidly in a block to get back to where they should have been. This pattern of working usually does not succeed in physics, and an attempt to proceed this way is a prime reason why a number of students with good academic averages do very poorly in physics. To understand physics many elements must be pieced together, and therefore "crashing" a physics course simply will not work.

One day a week, you should mail a packet consisting of your homework for the week and a computer disk. Which day this is will be decided by you and your campus instructor over the telephone, and it will be timed to "fit" well with your telephone appointment. For most participants the assumed day will be Monday or Tuesday, since this allows for the completion of the assignment over the weekend. Also, on the weekend, we have arranged for the availability of help for you on a call-in basis should you have questions with the work assigned. Please get into the habit of staying on schedule.

Weekly Quizzes

Quizzes are to be taken on your own with no additional help from outside sources after the week's reading, homework, and telephone call are completed. Do not ask your telephone instructor to assist you on any quiz item. Please mail it along with your weekly homework.

Homework Procedures

Each of the homework problems is listed in the general assignments. Almost all are from your textbook. PLEASE NOTE that each problem to be submitted is also reproduced on a separate sheet of paper in this binder. Each sheet identifies the problem, the assignment, and has a place for your name. The sheet also restates the problem exactly as it appears in the textbook and is blank otherwise. IT IS ON THIS PAPER that we expect you to write out the completed problem and submit it for grading. Many problems are short and will not require the space available. Most sheets have a separate problem on the front and another on the back to reduce the number of sheets involved. Rarely, a problem is longer and the back of the sheet has been left blank as well as the front for your work.

Weekly Telephone Meeting

We will be calling you on the telephone every week to discuss the current work. One of our first tasks is to develop a regular weekly time for this call that is your time and nobody else's time. You have already given us a listing of possible times. Included in this package is the schedule that we have worked out, based on your input. IF THERE IS ANY TROUBLE WITH THIS TIME, LET US KNOW IT AT ONCE! That is true now, and it is also true during the semester if any conflict develops. That time is YOUR WEEKLY TIME SLOT.

If we do not call you at the start of that time slot, each and every week during the semester, you have a right to be upset If we don't, PLEASE CALL the Director, Dr. Kenneth Hershman, at 412 357 4591. Likewise, you should make it abundantly clear to any teenaged children you have about, etc., that this particular time slot is special and reserved for you, barring emergency, period! You should be near the phone, free of distractions, and ready and prepared to discuss the current content of the course.

If you know that you are not going to be available during your regularly scheduled time slot please let your instructor know. The weekly call schedule can be tailored to your school schedule. We will collect schedule information from you and arrange to "blank out" times when you might be out- of-town, or on an extended vacation, etc., provided you also request it. A vacation at home might be a great time to study the course materials. We will also try to make the starting and ending times of the work miss the heaviest paperwork portions of your school year. At the same time, we want you to get used to a WEEKLY schedule for everything, since staying current and not trying to do batches or blocks of the work in a "catch-up" fashion promotes effective learning. We MUST keep you on a schedule. We WILL keep you on a schedule, within reason, to make sure that you complete what is necessary before our summer coursework.

The weekly telephone conversation is extremely important to the program. We will be asking you questions to make sure you are progressing on schedule. There is some evaluation associated with each of these calls, but they are NOT a major component of grade determination (see the separate section), and you are not being interrogated just to "whip you into shape" every week. This is a perfectly legitimate time for you to have many questions for us and to have fuzzy points discussed and explained. You must, of course, have a list of what those points are so you know what to ask when the call comes in. The homework assignments are appropriate topics of discussion. Make every attempt to be prepared for each weeks assignment when your instructor calls. Make notes to yourself about particular points that you do not understand so that your instructor can give you assistance efficiently.

It is possible that the point cannot be explained to your satisfaction at that time, or, that it can't be explained at all without our thinking about it. In those cases, we will take a time to get back to you, either over the phone, or, in writing, or, more likely, both - DURING THAT WEEK. Since we have thirty participants to call each week, the phone call isn't completely open-ended in time - BUT IF WE HAVE TO END IT, WE WILL GET BACK TO YOU THAT WEEK!

Grades and Grading

At the end of the semester we will have 16 graded homework assignments from you. In addition, we will have the results of 16 weekly check quizzes and the evaluations of 16 telephone conversations on the subject matter. We have concluded that is enough to evaluate your work and assign a grade. The phone call is basically an instrument for us to detect problems early and then do as much as we can to help you over the rough spots. We have decided on the following weights for these component in determining a grade:

Homework Problems 35 - 45 %

Quiz Grades 35 - 45 %

Telephone Evaluations 35 - 45 %

All grading is imperfect, and even this scheme only resulted after long arguments among the members of the staff. We are more concerned with giving you an honest evaluation of your work than with the level of the grade itself.

A PHILOSOPHIC ASIDE, and an offer on grading.

One of the strengths of the IUP program for physics teachers has been a Departmental philosophy that makes no distinctions between teaching majors and "regular" physics majors until later, specialized coursework is reached. Some institutions seem to make teaching majors feel like second class citizens within the department. The president of Michigan State recently stated on a television panel that the entire state of Michigan produced one physics teacher last year (which year ?).

Well, IUP has just (which year ?) graduated 15 including ESPyC in its latest class. Maybe our philosophy is one reason. Still, ESPyC is different from our regular classes. We tend to de-emphasize that which is hard to do at a distance - long proofs and heavy mathematical treatments mostly. If that makes you insecure, and you really want an honest appraisal of how well you stack up against on-campus students at this level we make you this offer. We will, at your request, ship you a regular hourly exam for the course you are taking - have you take it and return it - grade it here and give you the results along with where you would place in an on-campus curve for the test. Now note that this is NOT to be opted for lightly! The campus students study hard for a long time before the test with that as their main focus for the course. Also, the campus classes are not using the same textbook. Yours is no easier, just subdivided into smaller blocks of materials. YET, IF YOU WANT THIS ASSURANCE OF YOUR PERSONAL PERFORMANCE, WE DO OFFER IT.

When You Need Help

The main problem with getting help when you are off-campus is that it is not instantly available when you need it. You can call the Director or your instructor during our normal office hours. These hours are not completely known to us at this time. Please ask your instructor what his or her office hours are at the initial phone contact at the beginning of the course. Dr. Hershman may be contacted at 412-357-4591 during the morning hours tentatively on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday during the fall semester 1998.

They can be used for specific help or just to discuss problems that are arising as you work through the course. We really are here to help you work your way through this and will not discourage your efforts. However, unless we diagnose that you are in need of more help from the weekly phone calls, the only way you will get it is if you seek it out.