NJCTL’s Physics Program Receives National Recognition

NJCTL is honored to be one of only ten institutions recognized by PhysTEC’s 5+ Club for the 2020-21 academic year. 

Physics Teacher Education Coalition’s (PhysTEC) “5+ Club” is a group of institutions that have graduated five or more physics teachers in a given year. 

Most colleges and universities graduate fewer than two trained physics teachers a year, with the majority graduating none at all.  Over the past twelve years, 282 teachers completed NJCTL's Physics Endorsement Program, about 24 per year!  

The presidents of the American Physical Society (APS) and the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), Sylvester James Gates, Jr. and Jan Landis Mader, write:

We commend NJCTL on its outstanding contributions to the education of future physics teachers. Graduating more than five physics teachers in an academic year puts NJCTL in the 99th percentile of all US colleges and universities. We congratulate NJCTL for its excellence in physics teacher education and for serving as a national model for STEM teacher preparation.

In their annual reports from 2014-2020, the American Association for Employment in Education found that the teacher shortage in physics is considerable. Desperate physics teacher shortages pervade the country, and NJCTL’s excellent physics teacher preparation program is a service to the state of New Jersey.

PhysTEC, a flagship education program of the American Physical Society (APS) and the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT), aims to improve the education of future physics teachers by transforming physics departments, creating successful models for physics teacher education programs, and disseminating best practices. The project has funded more than 40 sites to build physics teacher education programs. (See www.phystec.org for more details.)

The PhysTEC program is supported by the National Science Foundation and the APS Campaign for the 21st Century.

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