I can’t say how the oral tradition works for experienced teachers, but it leave new teachers at the mercy of whatever they happen to have around them. I have been lucky, my advisor has been really helpful, as a student I saw many examples of excellent teaching, I have online relationships with people who are interested in talking about teaching. I know other people who have not been so lucky, and I wonder if a more formal approach could help them.

The Global Physics Department is a group of physics educators that meets every week online (Wednesday nights at 8:30CT) using web conferencing software. We talk about issues we have with all kinds of pedagogical issues. We’ve had textbook authors talk to us about their approaches, and we coach each other by watching videos of ourselves teaching. We’ve tackled issues with modeling instruction, group dynamics, flipping the classroom, mindset activities, how to teach error propagation, whether momentum is king (it is), and all kinds of other issues. The fact that we have people from a wide spectrum of teaching environments really makes it fun and exciting to talk about these issues.