Preparing future teachers to anticipate student difficulties in physics in a graduate-level course in physics, pedagogy, and education research (original) (raw)
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Revista do Professor de Física, 2022
This work is part PhD thesis whose objective is that pre-service physics teachers can build or strengthen (at least part of) a Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) in an electromagnetic course. For this purpose, an electromagnetic course was reconstructed based on science education research results that promotes the productive disciplinary involvement of students. We characterize PCK about electric circuits of two students who have taken this reconstructed electromagnetic course. At the same time, the PCK of another student who has taken the electromagnetic course but before it was reconstructed is characterized as well. For the characterization of the PCK, each of the three students involved in this study is asked to elaborate a sequence of activities of two classes on electric circuits and each component of the PCK is analyzed on the basis of a rubric designed for this purpose. The analysis shows that the PCK corresponds to teachers in training, although there are differences among them. The students who took the reconstructed course have a more developed PCK on electric circuits compared to those who took the same course before its reconstruction.
Oersted Medal Lecture 2001:Physics Education ResearchThe Key to Student Learning
American Journal of Physics, 2001
Research on the learning and teaching of physics is essential for cumulative improvement in physics instruction. Pursuing this goal through systematic research is efficient and greatly increases the likelihood that innovations will be effective beyond a particular instructor or institutional setting. The perspective taken is that teaching is a science as well as an art. Research conducted by physicists who are actively engaged in teaching can be the key to setting high ͑yet realistic͒ standards, to helping students meet expectations, and to assessing the extent to which real learning takes place.
Changing student ways of knowing: What should our students learn in a physics class
2005
Over the past twenty-five years, educational research on introductory university physics classes has demonstrated that student learning is often significantly less than we hope and expect. Specific conceptual difficulties have been identified in a wide variety of topics. Research-based curricula designed to improve student conceptual learning can yield substantial gains over traditional instruction.
Preparing teachers to teach physics and physical science by inquiry
Physics Education, 2000
The Physics Education Group at the University of Washington is deeply involved in preparing K-12 teachers to teach physics and physical science by inquiry. During the academic year, the Department offers special courses for preservice (prospective) teachers. During the summer, the group conducts a sixweek, intensive NSF Summer Institute for Inservice Teachers. The group also designs and helps conduct local short-term workshops for teachers. This paper is a distillation of more than 25 years of experience in working with K-12 teachers. Teacher preparation has been an integral part of our group's comprehensive program in research, curriculum development, and instruction. Research by our group focuses on investigations of student understanding in physics. The results are used to guide the design of instructional materials for various student populations at the introductory level and beyond. We have drawn on our research findings and teaching experience in developing Physics by Inquiry. 2 This self-contained, laboratory-based curriculum is designed for use in university courses to prepare K-12 teachers to teach physics and physical science effectively. Ongoing assesment of the instructional materials takes place both at our university and at pilot sites.
New Directions of Research on Undergraduate Physics Education
Lecture presented at the University of Tokyo Conference on Physics Education,, "Physics for All", 2006
Welcome to the international conference, “Physics for All,” that has brought together many teachers of physics from all over the world. As physics educators, many of us have had the experience that our students do not seem to be learning physics very well, not all of them, anyway. It used to be that it was all right to only worry about the few percent that were able to learn well when we taught physics in our traditional way. But now, in these increasingly technical times, it is essential for us to pay more attention to more of our students. This is what we mean by “Physics for All.” As a result of this shift in view, a few decades ago, a number of physicists began to treat the teaching of physics as a scientific problem, and to use their skills as scientists to solve the question of how we can teach more students more effectively. This is not a trivial problem. It is harder than nuclear physics and it is harder than rocket science. Physics education researchers around the world now treat these issues as scientific research problems and ask a series of important questions: What is actually going on in our classes? How can we better accomplish our goals? How can we better understand what our real goals are for our students?
A course on integrated approaches in physics education
Abstract We describe a course designed to teach future educators the different elements of physics education research (PER), including: research into student learning, content knowledge from the perspective of how it is learned, and reform-based curricula together with evidence of their effectiveness. Course format includes equal parts of studying physics through proven curricula and discussion of research results in the context of the PER literature.
Connecting Research in Physics Education with Teacher Education vol 1
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), 1998
The ICPE wishes to make the material in this book as widely available to the physics education community as possible. Therefore, provided that appropriate acknowledgement is made to the source and that no changes are made to the text or graphics, it may be freely used and copied by individuals for non-profit pedagogical purposes only. Any other use requires the written permission of the International Commission on Physics Education and the authors of the relevant parts of the book.
Pedagogical content knowledge and preparation of high school physics teachers
Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research, 2010
This paper contains a scholarly description of pedagogical practices of the Rutgers Physics/Physical Science Teacher Preparation program. The program focuses on three aspects of teacher preparation: knowledge of physics, knowledge of pedagogy, and knowledge of how to teach physics ͑pedagogical content knowledge-PCK͒. The program has been in place for 7 years and has a steady production rate of an average of six teachers per year who remain in the profession. The main purpose of the paper is to provide information about a possible structure, organization, and individual elements of a program that prepares physics teachers. The philosophy of the program and the coursework can be implemented either in a physics department or in a school of education. The paper provides details about the program course work and teaching experiences and suggests ways to adapt it to other local conditions.
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...