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Why hold a Careers in Teaching Physics event in your institution?

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Few undergraduates know exactly what they want to do career-wise, even in their final year. As physics graduates are highly sought-after, recruiters such as accountancy firms, management consultants and engineering companies leap at the opportunity, regularly visiting physics departments to promote their careers.

With so many visits from the corporate sector, it’s easy for students to overlook teaching as an alternative yet equally exciting and fulfilling career option. So how about flying the flag for physics teaching by visiting the undergraduate physicists in your university to promote your teacher training options?

If your institution does not have a physics department, this doesn’t mean that the opportunities are over for you. Investigate your neighbouring institutions. Some do not have education departments, so working together can result in a win-win scenario for both sides.

To test out the water, the Institute of Physics has been trialling Careers in Teaching Physics events with a number of physics departments in London. The events turned out to be both successful and enjoyable. Here, we share our experiences and best practice with you.

We’re confident that - with the right level of support and planning – you can run your own Careers in Teaching Physics event and that you will find it surprisingly effective and cost-efficient.

What is a Careers in Teaching Physics event?
The aim is to create an informal yet informative event. It should highlight the benefits of teaching, whilst explaining the practicalities of how to train and the reality of what life is like as a teacher.

Our events were held in the physics departments, making it as easy as possible for students to attend. They lasted about two hours and we were delighted to get around 30 students to each. We also provided participants with free refreshments, doughnuts (they proved very popular!) and an IOP goodie bag.

Suggested structure:

  • Why teach?
    Outline what being a teacher involves, including the benefits and rewards of teaching
  • Routes into teaching
    Details about the various teacher training routes, the funding available, how to apply including getting classroom experience and the Student Ambassador scheme.
  • Life as a teacher
    Invite a local teacher – preferably fairly newly qualified - to share their experiences and enthusiasm.

And don’t forget to allow plenty of time for questions.

How to arrange a Careers in Teaching Physics event
We suggest you should allow about five weeks to plan, organise and run a successful Carers in Teaching Physics event. To get your event off the ground, follow these steps. We’ve also prepared a week-by-week planner which we hope will be helpful.

1.Contact your physics department
First of all, contact the physics department, usually via the department co-ordinator or administrator. Together you can arrange a date and time and think about what support you’ll need for your event. If there is no physics department at your institution, contact the one at your neighbouring university. Even if you do have your own physics department, your neighbouring university may not offer ITE so consider inviting their physics undergraduates too.

2. Appoint an ‘Ambassador’
For each event we recruited an ‘IOP Ambassador’, a physics student at the institution who was tasked with promoting the event. The Ambassador had a vital role to play, reaching out to students (coursemates, those in other year groups and throughout the university) that we couldn’t attract and promoting the event in ways that we weren’t able to. The Ambassador positions were advertised by the physics departments and we then selected the most suitable candidates. They received a payment of £200.

3. Promote the event
We can provide advertising posters, postcards and images for the Ambassadors to use tailored to your specific event. Your Ambassador should do the most of the promotion, but you may wish to do some yourself, perhaps within your department.

It’s worth calling us to see how else we can help. We have a pull-up banner that you can borrow and can supply you with goodie bags to give out to participants at the end of the event. Ours included a copy of Physics World, our Love Physics guide to training as a physics teacher, pen, ruler and postcard.

 

Tips for ambassadors on how to promote the event:

  • Display posters on notice boards within the physics department, ensuring the main thoroughfare areas are covered
  • Leave postcards in lecture rooms, coffee shops, libraries and computer rooms
  • Set up a Facebook event
  • Ask lecturers to do a ‘shout out’ before or after a lecture
  • Ask the university’s physics society to promote the event to its members

4. Find a teacher
The best advocate for your ITE courses is someone who trained with you and is now a few years into their teaching career. If you are in touch with someone suitable, invite them along. If not, you could post a message on Talk Physics looking for a local teacher or use the PTNC mailing list to do the same. You’ll find you have no shortage of volunteers.

5. Capturing data on attendees
Ask attendees to complete a registration form to allow you to send them further information about your course. Names and e-mail addresses should be enough but by all means ask them for other info if you want. The IOP is developing a programme to encourage and support potential candidates for teacher training to go ahead and apply for ITE. If you (and the students) are willing to share the data with us, do pass them on.

Good luck. And if there is anything we can help you with, please get in touch at teach@iop.org.

 

Feedback from IOP pilot events
In February and March 2011, we ran events at University College London, Imperial College, Queen Mary, King's College and Royal Holloway College.

Here are some of the comments we got back afterwards:

“I had wanted to specialise in medical physics research or do a masters in space exploration and go that route but had not thought about teaching. After today's talk I am definitely thinking about teaching. Thank you”

“I thought the event was very well advertised, organised and generally a very useful thing to happen. I will now seriously consider a career in teaching physics after being inspired by all the talks given!” 

“Great idea to have a teacher sharing his experience with us” 

“Good content, also presentations were engaging and interesting” 

“A good and enjoyable event!” 

“The event definitely made me think about a career as a secondary school teacher but I'm still unsure if the pros weigh more than the cons of little money, long emotional hours etc. Thank you for a very informative evening though :)” 

“Very interesting event, lots of good information”