The physics department at California State University, Sacramento has a history of commitment to training future K-12 teachers. The department participated in the NSF-funded Sacramento Area Collaborative for Teacher Education, working closely with colleagues in the College of Education to develop a new physics course for future K-8 teachers. The course models research-based teaching strategies as well as the scientific process for future teachers. Each year, two special sections of the course are reserved for cohorts who take their science methods course in the same semester they take this physics course.

Members of the physics faculty are continuing in efforts to refine the course materials and content, study the effects of the use of technology in the class, compare and assess different methods of teaching scientific process skills, incorporate multidisciplinary topics into the coursework, and use Learning Assistants (selected from physics majors interested in high school teaching) in the course.

We have launched a "Teacher Preparation Concentration" for our physics majors, and created two new classes that provide teaching experiences with a strong mentoring component to these future physics teachers. The program is starting its fourth year and the first student completed the credentialing program in Spring 2011. Three physics majors are currently enrolled and one is starting the credentialing program in Spring 2012. The Teacher Preparation Program in the College of Education certified three students certified in physics in 2009-10 and we are working together to steadily increase this number.

In Fall 2011 we started an innovative learning assistant program that employs STEM majors to facilitate project-based instruction in large introduction to astronomy course at Sacramento State. Our main goal is to turn STEM-oriented students on to the excitement of teaching, increase the number of physics majors, and most importantly increase the short supply of highly qualified physics teachers. The pilot project run with 5 LAs working with a 80-student class of introduction to astrobiology and the results are very encouraging. The LAs quickly took ownership of the project. They kept a blog documenting the experience, and even took the initiative of creating medals that were awarded to the best three projects on an end of semester projects celebration! See our webpage at http://webpages.csus.edu/~vemargon/LA/ for more details.