Physics: Frightful, but fun. Pupils' and teachers' views of physics and physics teaching (original) (raw)
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Secondary school pupils' perceptions of physics.
Research in science & technological education., 2006
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Storylines in the physics teaching content of an upper secondary school classroom
Research in Science & Technological Education, 2019
Background: Physics is often seen as a discipline with difficult content, and one that is difficult to identify with. Socialisation processes at the upper secondary school level are of particular interest as these may be linked to the subsequent low and uneven participation in university physics. Focusing on how norms are construed in physics classrooms in upper secondary school is therefore relevant. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify discursive patterns in teacher-student interactions in physics classrooms. Design and methods: Three different physics lessons with one class of students taught by three different teachers in upper secondary school were video-recorded. Positioning theory was used to analyse classroom interaction with a specific focus on how physics was positioned. Results: We identified seven different storylines. Four of them ('reaching a solution to textbook problems', 'discussing physics concepts in order to gain better understanding', 'doing empirical enquiry' and 'preparing for the upcoming exam') represent what teaching physics in an upper secondary school classroom can be. The last three storylines ('mastering physics', 'appreciating physics' and 'having a feeling for physics') all concern how students are supposed to relate to physics and, thus, become 'insiders' in the discipline. Conclusions: The identification and analysis of storylines raises awareness of the choices teachers make in physics education and their potential consequences for students. For example, in the storyline of mastering physics a good physics student is associated with 'smartness', which might make the classroom a less secure place in general. Variation and diversity in the storylines construed in teaching can potentially contribute to a more inclusive physics education.
New Themes in Physics Teaching: A personal retrospective
2016
For a little over 40 years, what we label now, physics education research, has been conducted. As a result, new themes in the research in physics learning and in physics education have emerged. Some of these themes are cognitivism, qualitative research, learning as construction of knowledge, epistemological underpinnings that are not realist, student understanding-driven pedagogies, and scholarship in fields outside physics. These themes have arisen in minds of our colleagues, who focus their attention on students ’ understandings of physical phenomena, instead of how well the students do on conventional tests. Physics education research shows that alternative pedagogies result in a wider range of students making much greater changes in their understanding of the phenomena than the conventional pedagogies, far beyond mere statistical significance. Yet, these themes are still just themes and not major changes in physics teaching as a whole enterprise. Since we know these pedagogies a...
An Investigation into Physics Teaching in Senior High Schools
World Journal of Education, 2014
This study sought to examine the activities that go on in physics classrooms in Senior High Schools in Ghana. Specifically, the study sought to investigate the pattern of interaction and instructional methods used for teaching physics and level of coverage of physics syllabus. The survey design was employed for the study in which questionnaire was used for data collection. Participants for the study were physics teachers and final year physics students. Findings from the study suggest that classroom interaction seemed to be mostly teacher-centered and tended not to support inquiry-based teaching and learning which is noted for promoting conceptual change and enhance performance. It is recommended among other things that physics teachers should be exposed to efficient pedagogies of teaching and presenting information to learners. The traditional way of teaching where teacher decides on what goes on in the classroom has a limited space in the 21 st century science classrooms, particularly physics.
Physicists as key players in developing a new physics curriculum
DIDFYZ 2019: Formation of the Natural Science Image of the World in the 21st Century, 2019
This paper deals with the physics curriculum development for secondary (especially upper secondary) schools. The preparatory phase of an investigation which targets a development of a new physics curriculum is described and discussed here. We were searching the international databases Scopus and Web of Science for publications which deal with physics (or science) curriculum reforms and with methods how to create a new curriculum. The literature review brought several crucial findings: in founded publications is criticized that on the international scene, there is paid an insufficient attention to physics/science curriculum, changes of curriculum are only tiny adjustments in most cases, the so-called math issue is frequently mentioned among main problems of physics curriculum. However, there has not been identified any transparent methodology for curriculum development and in most cases of physics curriculum-making or curriculum reforms it is not clear who and why has carried out it. A qualitative research approach was used, and grounded theory was chosen as the basic research plan in our research. The data will be collected using interviews and questionnaires. In the spring of 2019, in-depth interviews with 30 physicists from Czechia will be conducted. The physicists in this study were selected based on their high H-index (Web of Science) and other excellent results at the international level. Implications for the development of a new physics curriculum will be extracted.
Investigation of Physics Teachers’ Opinions About the Physics Curriculum
Canadian Journal of Physics, 2019
The aim of this study is to determine the opinions of physics teachers about the physics curriculum that was updated in 2017. The study was carried out by using quantitative and qualitative data collection tools within the context of case study methodology. The research sample was formed from 64 physics teachers from different provinces of Turkey who participated in the training organized for introducing a physics curriculum at the Yalova Esenkoy In-service Training Institute. A questionnaire consisting of 30 questions with four-point Likert-type and interviews including eight questions were conducted. Findings show that physics teachers generally indicate a positive approach to the physics curriculum. However, almost all physics teachers who participated in the research stated that the physics course hours were insufficient to implement the physics curriculum and that some subjects should be removed from the physics curriculum.
Profiling Secondary School Teachers’ Attitudes Towards Learning Physics
The study describes the attitudes towards Physics and learning Physics of secondary school teachers who underwent a six-week in-service training program at the De La Salle University – Manila during the months of April and May, 2007. Since the background of the teachers was neither in Physics nor in Physics education, the training program was designed to upgrade their conceptual understanding of Physics and their skills and competencies in teaching Physics. Using the data obtained from the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS), this study presents a profile of the attitudes and beliefs held by the secondary school teachers.
The distinction between key ideas in teaching a high school science and key ideas in the corresponding discipline of science has been largely ignored in scholarly discourse about what science teachers should teach and about what they should know. This article clarifies this distinction through exploring how and why key ideas in teaching high school physics differ from key ideas in the discipline of physics. Its theoretical underpinnings include Dewey’s (1902/1990) distinction between the psychological and the logical and Harre´’s (1986) epistemology of science. It analyzes how and why the key ideas in teaching color, the speed of light, and light interference at the high school level differ from the key ideas at the disciplinary level. The thesis is that key ideas in teaching high school physics can differ from key ideas in the discipline in some significant ways, and that the differences manifest Dewey’s distinction. As a result, the article challenges the assumption of equating key ideas in teaching a high school science with key ideas in the corresponding discipline of science, and the assumption that having a college degree in science is sufficient to teach high school science. Furthermore, the article expands the concept of pedagogical content knowledge by arguing that key ideas in teaching high school physics constitute an essential component.