PHY622: Learn how to teach E&M better at Buffalo State this summer.
Would you like to improve your understanding of Electricity and Magnetism and improve your
students’ learning? Are you confident teaching the related yet distinct ideas of electric field,
electric forces, electric potential, electric potential energy, EMF, voltage, capacitance,
inductance, magnetic fields, magnetic forces, and current to your students? Would you like to
develop greater conceptual comfort with robust atomic level models more appropriate for HS
and college introductory E & M learners than Ohm’s Law and water flowing through pipes?*
PHY 622:
The class will run 15 days July 10-28 8 AM-5 PM with live face to face student discourse-intensive
classes with extensive hands-on activities on campus, followed by 10 days July 29-Aug 11 of
online synchronous and nonsynchronous activities. Approximately $500/cr for 6cr (SUNY in-
state graduate tuition). PHY622 is instructed by a team of Buffalo State physics department
faculty, NYS Master Teacher Fellows, and the American Modeling Teacher Association (AMTA)
Master Teachers. Registration is currently open, see https://suny.buffalostate.edu/summer for
application, registration, and fee information.
We will review all topics present in a standard calculus-based E&M lower division course,
complete an ASU Modeling Physics E&M workshop, complete graduate-level readings and
discourse in teaching and learning E&M, a video project, and a content exam. Variants of this
course have been offered at Buffalo State since 2002, though this course was recently
reformatted and extended to satisfy NYSED requirements.
Campus housing is available if desired at $60/day, and several LEAs have in the past provided
Title II funds for up to the full cost of attendance at this course, including tuition, books, travel,
room and board – check with your principal. For additional queries regarding PHY622, please
contact the instructor of record, Professor Dan MacIsaac at macisadl@buffalostate.edu .
*Sample reading: Saeli, S. & MacIsaac, D.L. (2007). Using gravitational analogies to introduce
elementary electrical field theory concepts.
The Physics Teacher, 45(2), 104-108. Available from Scitation.org or by googling.