As a new physics faculty member 25 years ago, Wendell Potter
came to UC Davis believing he was an excellent teacher. After all, when
he was a teaching assistant in graduate school, his sections always
received the highest average scores on tests. But something was
definitely wrong with his classes at UC Davis. The problem was larger
than him, he decided."The students weren't getting it," Potter says. "They relied much more on memorization than understanding." His motivation to have students actually understand fundamental physics led him on a quest to find, nurture and share new methods of teaching science. Potter's resulting influence on students and teachers, from kindergarten to college, has rippled through the community and state and played a key role in helping establish a new framework for science education in public schools--thus earning him the 1996 Distinguished Public Service Award from the UC Davis Academic Senate.
Potter has been the driving force behind a UC Davis-based outreach program aimed at improving the quality of science teaching in grades kindergarten through 12 in the Sacramento area and throughout the state. Initiated through a grant from the National Science Foundation, the program is now known as the California Science Project of Sacramento, one of 12 statewide projects to improve science education in the public schools. Potter is co-director.
He provides pedagogical and science content instruction during the summer institutes and on many Saturdays during the academic year. Here, teachers gain confidence in their ability to think and reason rather than relying totally on memorization. They learn how to create learning environments in their own classrooms that encourage students to ask questions, to propose solutions and then to test them out.
Teachers from the science project are working with colleagues to extend the new ideas. Others have assumed statewide leadership positions in the science education reform movement. Yet other science project participants are featured in a one-hour laser disk and manual Potter conceived, developed, wrote and edited.
Among other activities, Potter is the main physical science author for the primary state document that determines how science is taught in grades K-9. He has also been involved in a number of projects to increase the number of underrepresented minorities who will teach science and math in K-12 in the public schools.
Potter has helped develop a new physics course for UC Davis biology undergraduates to which he applies the new ways of teaching physics at a more sophisticated level. He also serves as the vice chair of the physics department. His experimental research specialty has been in condensed matter, although his scholarly interests have shifted to formulating and implementing education theory at both the university and in primary and secondary schools.
Mary Doval Graziose/photo
