Rutgers Physics Teacher Preparation Program

In this talk I will describe my experiences in the Rutgers Physics Teacher Preparation program as a future physics teacher and share how these experiences shaped my career as a physics teacher. The uniqueness of the Rutgers Program is that it prepares physics teachers separately from other science teachers, thus providing them with a firm foundation of how to engage high school students in deep conceptual and quantitative learning of physics concepts. While in the program I was exposed to the findings from the physics education research and science education that helped me not only understand how students learn in general but also how they learn physics, what ideas they have to begin with and how to engage them in the active construction of physics knowledge. After I finished the program I have been involved in the induction program that helped me overcome many difficulties that beginning teachers have.~