Recent reports have identified the following problems in traditional teacher preparation in the USA:· Lack of connection and congruence between what is advocated (teaching for understanding) and what is practiced in the subject matter and pedagogy courses, and field experiences in the secondary school classroom.

• Lack of coherence within the teacher preparation programs, fostered by the paucity of communication among subject-matter faculty, education faculty, and experienced teachers in the secondary school setting.
• Inadequate subject matter preparation.
• Inadequate and unsupervised nature of school-based experiences of the student teachers.

To address these concerns, three professional organzations (American Physical Society, American Institute of Physics, and American Association of Physics Teachers) have joined efforts to form the Physics Teacher Education Coalition. We will share strategies from the coalition-member institutions that are designed to improve physics teacher education. These strategies include:

Involvement of Teachers in Residence
Physics-education-research based reform of physics courses
Mentoring of beginning physics teachers
Outreach to physics teacher community
Collaboration with Colleges of Education
Development of new degree programs for prospective physics teachers Collaboration among teacher preparation programs across the USA
Following presentations by the panel members, we will invite the audience to join in a discussion of improving physics teacher preparation.