More on UK Distance Learning program

University of Kentucky Distance Learning program offers a set of virtual physics courses offered for professional development or graduate credit to intermediate and middle grade teachers (grades 4-9). The courses emphasize content understanding of physics topics important for teachers, and promote learning that content through inquiry activities. In addition, much of the instructional material is directly transferrable to participants' classrooms. We are offering three courses: Light, Temperature and Heat, and Electricity and Magnetism. You can preview these at: http://www.pa.uky.edu/sciworks/intro.htm. As you will see, hands-on activities and learning through concrete experiences play a central role in this course, even though it is delivered in a distance learning format. Each is a 1 credit-hour graduate course, and will take approximately 30 hours to complete. These are offered through the Distance Learning program at the University of Kentucky. Individuals may take the class, but we also encourage small groups (2 or 3 teachers) to enroll and work through the course together. The course is asynchronous: participant groups work at their own location, on a schedule that they determine in advance. In addition to the graduate credit option, we are also conducting some grant funded pilot studies of this learning model. Many teachers are taking these courses now for professional development or graduate credit as part of our pilot project. We continue to form pilot groups to participate in the grant related activities, and we have some grant incentives for participants in the pilot studies. Please tell any teachers that you think might be interested about this. It's an opportunity to boost their physics content understanding via UK instruction without leaving their district. Click Here To Get More Information.

Contact Details

Direct questions to: Sally Shafer or Prof. Joe Straley Department of Physics & Astronomy University of Kentucky Lexington, KY 40506-0055 Ph. : (859) 257-5131 questions fax: (859) 323-2846 e-mail: shafer@pa.uky.edu