The challenges of physics teacher education are obvious: 1) physics teaching in schools is often uninspiring and ineffective, the many brilliant ideas for exciting physics are underused; 2) in many countries there is a shortage of qualified physics teachers, enrolments in physics teacher education are minimal, well qualified baby boomers are leaving, un- or under qualified teachers take their place, and physics teacher education has a low status in university physics departments; 3) good physics teaching needs lifelong nurture and maintenance. What can we do? First of all, we are lucky to have a very exciting subject, let’s make use of physics excitement and put that as a first priority in our teacher education. Then there are pre-service teaching activities which can contribute much to the learning of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) and subsequent better teaching as these methods are generating PCK within the pre-service teacher’s own classroom. Six examples are described in this paper including fast feedback as an example of formative assessment which leads teaching and almost inevitably results in development of PCK. Finally some examples are presented of induction and professional development initiatives.
DOCUMENT
Stargazing Live! aims to capture the imagination of learners with a combination of live and interactive planetarium lessons, real astronomical data, and lessons built around interactive knowledge representations. The lessons were created using a co-creation model and tackle concepts in the pre-university (astro)physics which students find difficult to grasp with traditional interventions. An evaluation study in 9 Dutch classrooms showed that learners are inspired and engaged by the planetarium lessons but are not always able to link the content to the classroom. Pre- and post-tests showed that the accompanying star properties activity significantly increased learners’ understanding of the causal relationships between mass and other properties (such as luminosity, gravity, and temperature) in a main sequence star.
DOCUMENT
We present the Stargazing Live! program comprising a planetarium experience and supporting lesson activities for pre-university physics education. The mobile planetarium aims to inspire and motivate learners using real telescope data during the experience. Learners then consolidate their learning by creating conceptual models in the DynaLearn software. During development of the program, content experts and stakeholders were consulted. Three conceptual model lesson activities have been created: star properties, star states and the fusion-gravity balance. The present paper evaluates the planetarium experience plus the star properties lesson activity in nine grade 11 and 12 classes across three secondary schools in the Netherlands. Learners are very positive about the planetarium experience, but they are less able to link the topics in the planetarium to the curriculum. The conceptual modelling activity improves the learners understanding of the causal relationship between the various stellar properties. Future work includes classroom testing of the star states and fusion-gravity balance lessons.
DOCUMENT
Many students in secondary schools consider the sciences difficult and unattractive. This applies to physics in particular, a subject in which students attempt to learn and understand numerous theoretical concepts, often without much success. A case in point is the understanding of the concepts current, voltage and resistance in simple electric circuits. In response to these problems, reform initiatives in education strive for a change of the classroom culture, putting emphasis on more authentic contexts and student activities containing elements of inquiry. The challenge then becomes choosing and combining these elements in such a manner that they foster an understanding of theoretical concepts. In this article we reflect on data collected and analyzed from a series of 12 grade 9 physics lessons on simple electric circuits. Drawing from a theoretical framework based on individual (conceptual change based) and socio-cultural views on learning, instruction was designed addressing known conceptual problems and attempting to create a physics (research) culture in the classroom. As the success of the lessons was limited, the focus of the study became to understand which inherent characteristics of inquiry based instruction complicate the process of constructing conceptual understanding. From the analysis of the data collected during the enactment of the lessons three tensions emerged: the tension between open inquiry and student guidance, the tension between students developing their own ideas and getting to know accepted scientific theories, and the tension between fostering scientific interest as part of a scientific research culture and the task oriented school culture. An outlook will be given on the implications for science lessons.
LINK
Stargazing Live! aims to capture the imagination of students of all ages with live and interactive (mobile) planetarium lessons about the transient universe incorporating semi-live data from the Dutch MeerLICHT and BlackGEM telescopes. The most advanced lesson, at pre-university physics level, also aims to support the teaching and learning of key curriculum concepts. Results from the evaluation study show that pre-university physics students are engaged and inspired by the planetarium lesson but find it difficult to link the topics to what they learn in their physics lessons, supporting the need for follow-up classroom-based activities. To address this omission, lesson activities have been created for this age group to accompany the planetarium shows using the interactive tool DynaLearn (https://dynalearn.nl/). The lessons challenge students to model key curriculum concepts linked to the telescopes and their science such as stellar properties and the balance within a main-sequence star. The lessons were created using a co-creation model – led by science education experts with significant input from astronomers, astronomy outreach/education professionals and physics teachers. Knowledge questionnaires, completed immediately prior to and after the ‘stellar properties’ activity showed a significant increase in the number of students able to correctly describe the causal relationships between mass and other properties in a main sequence star such as luminosity, gravity, and temperature. All materials are freely available in both English and Dutch (https://www.astronomie.nl/stargazinglive).
MULTIFILE
This paper presents a mixed methods study in which 77 students and 3 teachers took part, that investigated the practice of Learning by Design (LBD). The study is part of a series of studies, funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), that aims to improve student learning, teaching skills and teacher training. LBD uses the context of design challenges to learn, among other things, science. Previous research showed that this approach to subject integration is quite successful but provides little profit regarding scientific concept learning. Perhaps, when the process of concept learning is better understood, LBD is a suitable method for integration. Through pre- and post-exams we measured, like others, a medium gain in the mastery of scientific concepts. Qualitative data revealed important focus-related issues that impede concept learning. As a result, mainly implicit learning of loose facts and incomplete concepts occurs. More transparency of the learning situation and a stronger focus on underlying concepts should make concept learning more explicit and coherent.
DOCUMENT
Why a position statement on Assessment in Physical Education? The purpose of this AIESEP Position Statement on Assessment in Physical Education (PE) is fourfold: • To advocate internationally for the importance of assessment practices as central to providing meaningful, relevant and worthwhile physical education; • To advise the field of PE about assessment-related concepts informed by research and contemporary practice; • To identify pressing research questions and avenues for new research in the area of PE assessment; • To provide a supporting rationale for colleagues who wish to apply for research funds to address questions about PE assessment or who have opportunities to work with or influence policy makers. The main target groups for this position statement are PE teachers, PE pre-service teachers, PE curriculum officers, PE teacher educators, PE researchers, PE administrators and PE policy makers. How was this position statement created? The AIESEP specialist seminar ‘Future Directions in PE Assessment’ was held from October 18-20 2018, at Fontys University of Applied Sciences in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. The seminar aimed to bring together leading scholars in the field to present and discuss ‘evidence-informed’ views on various topics around PE assessment. It brought together 71 experts from 20 countries (see appendix 2) to share research on PE assessment via keynote lectures and research presentations and to discuss assessment-related issues in interactive sessions. Input from this meeting informed a first draft version of the statement. This first draft was sent to all participants of the specialist seminar for feedback, from which a second draft was created. This draft was presented at the AIESEP International Conference 2019 in Garden City, New York, after which further feedback was collected from participants both on site and through an online survey. The main contributors to the writing of the position statement are mentioned in appendix 1. Approval was granted by the AIESEP Board on May 7th, 2020. Largely in keeping with the main themes of the AIESEP specialist seminar ‘Future Directions in PE Assessment’, this Position Statement is divided into the following sections: Assessment Literacy; Accountability & Policy; Instructional Alignment; Assessment for Learning; Physical Education Teacher Education (PETE) and Continuing Professional Development; Digital Technology in PE Assessment. These sections are preceded by a brief overview of research data on PE. The statement concludes with directions for future research.
DOCUMENT
The pace of introduction of new technology and thus continuous change in skill needs at workplaces, especially for the engineers, has increased. While digitization induced changes in manufacturing, construction and supply chain sectors may not be felt the same in every sector, this will be hard to escape. Both young and experienced engineers will experience the change, and the need to continuously assess and close the skills gap will arise. How will we, the continuing engineering educators and administrators will respond to it? Prepared for engineering educators and administrators, this workshop will shed light on the future of continuing engineering education as we go through exponentially shortened time frames of technological revolution and in very recent time, in an unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. S. Chakrabarti, P. Caratozzolo, E. Sjoer and B. Norgaard.
DOCUMENT
Nowadays, digital tools for mathematics education are sophisticated and widely available. These tools offer important opportunities, but also come with constraints. Some tools are hard to tailor by teachers, educational designers and researchers; their functionality has to be taken for granted. Other tools offer many possible educational applications, which require didactical choices. In both cases, one may experience a tension between a teacher’s didactical goals and the tool’s affordances. From the perspective of Realistic Mathematics Education (RME), this challenge concerns both guided reinvention and didactical phenomenology. In this chapter, this dialectic relationship will be addressed through the description of two particular cases of using digital tools in Dutch mathematics education: the introduction of the graphing calculator (GC), and the evolution of the online Digital Mathematics Environment (DME). From these two case descriptions, my conclusion is that students need to develop new techniques for using digital tools; techniques that interact with conceptual understanding. For teachers, it is important to be able to tailor the digital tool to their didactical intentions. From the perspective of RME, I conclude that its match with using digital technology is not self-evident. Guided reinvention may be challenged by the rigid character of the tools, and the phenomena that form the point of departure of the learning of mathematics may change in a technology-rich classroom.
LINK
This paper is a summary paper of the Thematic Working Group (TWG) on Adult Mathematics Education (AME). The theme AME made its first appearance on CERME11 and in this paper we provide an overview of the growing and blossoming field of AME and the results of the working group. The main themes associated with AME are: the definition, scope, and assessment of numeracy, the role of language and dialogue, the role of affect, including motivation, and the role of societal power structures, including subthemes like equity, inclusion, vulnerable learners, agency and self-efficacy. We conclude with the opportunities and challenges for this theme from both scientific and societal perspective.
LINK
