The members and friends of the Two-Year College Committee of the American Association of Physics Teachers, AAPT, would like to submit the following response to the Report to be considered as a part of an AAPT response to the Report.

We feel the entire report is extremely important and will have a very positive impact on directing funds and attention to significant areas of students, institutions, and programs that have tremendous potential and have been largely ignored or neglected. We are grateful to the National Science Foundation and to the Committee for the work done for this report and for the opportunity to get directly involved in the implementation of the recommendations made by the report. In particular, we expect to see an impact as a result of the following features of the report.
.....Recognition that two-year institutions teach more than 40% of all undergraduates will require those colleges to look to the quality of the programs taught in science and mathematics and should encourage more cooperation between institutions. Efforts are already underway to establish collaborations and will be strengthened by the evidence provided in the Report.
.....Recognition that teaching strategies involving more direct student engagement and more interaction among students, and between students and instructors, could have a dramatic impact on the lecture/lab parity dilemma for two-year college laboratory science courses. The compelling evidence that important learning is often best facilitated through inquiry based, well guided hands-on activities will elevate the status of well planned activities and will support faculty in seeking more equitable assignments of time and professional recognition for their tasks in this arena.
.....Recognition that our institutions need to aggressively pursue strategies that will provide inclusion for large segments of the population which remain underrepresented in science and mathematics is particularly important to the two-year college and has been one of the prominent critical issues considered by the TYC21 project since its inception. AAPT as an organization has a strong recent history of actively seeking opportunities to include a broader representation and provides considerable support to the efforts of the two-year college community within the organization in the form of information and programs. Perhaps more importantly, individuals within the AAPT organization are genuinely concerned with this issue and have been reaching out on a personal level. The emphasis on ALL students so strongly articulated by the "Shaping the Future" Report can only make us more sensitive to this need.

There is only one aspect of the Report that has been questioned. The "George Committee" chose to omit from its recommendations any reference to student self-responsibilities. While there is understanding that the "Shaping the Future" report is a document for and among educators and institution, it may nevertheless be well in some future forum for there to be recommendations to the effect that those same educators and institutions begin to find new, stronger ways to impose on the students the values of self-reliance and self-responsibility as part of the educational process.

A significant reform movement seeking more information about how students approach the learning of science, why students succeed and pursue science, and investigating strategies that provide more effective learning and interest in the study of physics has been gaining prominence in AAPT for the past several years. The "Shaping the Future" Report should provide greater stature for those investigators and increase their ranks. Many two-year college physics faculty will recognize opportunities for real education research, working as they do in settings that showcase ALL of the elements featured in the Report and with the weight and prestige of the NSF and its Report providing backing.