The gendered achievement in physics always bothers high school teachers, especially when problem-solving learning is involved. The lag in female students’ learning achievement in physics is reflected by the low enrolment of females in physics-related subjects at grade 12. For years, the most common method adopted by teachers was to instruct female students using repetitious exercises.
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How can physics education be designed and enacted in such a way that it is in agreement with the Nature of Science (NOS) and fosters conceptual understanding in electricity? The results of the studies may have implications for practice. Teachers and teacher educators need to develop a balanced perspective on conceptual understanding in relation to inquiry and take into account the tensions that were identified. For the topic of electricity, teachers may learn from the local instruction theory and pedagogy developed in this dissertation. Both teacher education institutes and professionalization efforts need to prepare teachers for this type of instruction. This will be fostered if teachers and teacher educators develop an understanding of NOS. A noticeable classroom impact of teacher learning may be expected if teachers work cooperatively on the same issue, related to a concern about student learning, if expertise is available on the content and pedagogy, and if classroom coaching and feedback are part of the project. The criteria to evaluate textbooks may be helpful for authors of learning materials if they intend to foster model-oriented activities and inquiry, but also for practitioners for the selection of these materials and in teacher education to prepare for a systematic evaluation of learning materials for physics.
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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.
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The research issue in this study is how to structure collaborative learning so that it improves solving physics problems more than individual learning. Structured collaborative learning has been compared with individual learning environments with Schoenfeld's problem-solving episodes. Students took a pre-test and a post-test and had the opportunity to solve six physics problems. Ninety-nine students from a secondary school in Shanghai participated in the study. Students who learnt to solve problems in collaboration and students who learnt to solve problems individually with hints improved their problem-solving skills compared with those who learnt to solve the problems individually without hints. However, it was hard to discern an extra effect for students working collaboratively with hints - although we observed these students working in a more structured way than those in the other groups. We discuss ways to further investigate effective collaborative processes for solving physics problems.
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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.
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Research has shown that female students cannot profit as much as male students can from cooperative learning in physics, especially in mixed-gender dyads. This study has explored the influence of partner gender on female students’ learning achievement, interaction and the problem-solving process during cooperative learning. In Shanghai, a total of 50 students (26 females and 24 males), drawn from two classes of a high school, took part in the study. Students were randomly paired, and there were three research groups: mixed-gender dyads (MG), female–female dyads (FF) and male–male dyads (MM). Analysis of students’ pre- and post-test performances revealed that female students in the single-gender condition solved physics problems more effectively than did those in the mixed-gender condition, while the same was not the case for male students. We further explored the differences between female and male communication styles, and content among the three research groups. It showed that the females’ interaction content and problem-solving processes were more sensitive to partner gender than were those for males. This might explain why mixed-gender cooperation in physics disadvantages females in high schools.
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De World Conference on Physics Education vond plaats in Istanbul van 1 – 6 juli met als thema The Role of Context, Culture,and Representations in Physics Teaching and Learning. Deze conferentie wordt eens in de vier jaar door de Europese, Aziatische, en Amerikaanse natuurkunde onderwijs organisaties georganiseerd . Er waren 350 deelnemers waaronder de top van de Amerikaanse en Europese natuurkunde onderwijsspecialisten. Presentaties betroffen allerlei aspecten van natuurkunde onderwijs zoals toepassing van ICT, begripsmoeilijkheden van leerlingen, toetsing, onderzoekend leren, spectaculaire demonstraties, etc. HvA was vertegenwoordigd door Mirjam Venneker van VO-BVE-BiNaSk en lector Ed van den Berg (Pabo). Ed was een van de keynote speakers. Een downloadable annotated powerpoint is te vinden op: http://www.wcpe2012.org/keynote-speakers.html.
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The visual representation of Information System (IS) artefacts is an important aspect in the practical application of visual representations. However, important and known visual representation principles are often undervalued, which could lead to decreased effectiveness in using a visual representation. Decision Management (DM) is one field of study in which stakeholders must be able to utilize visual notations to model business decisions and underlying business logic, which are executed by machines, thus are IS artefacts. Although many DM notations currently exist, little research actually evaluates visual representation principles to identify the visual notations most suitable for stakeholders. In this paper, the Physics of Notations framework of Moody is operationalized and utilized to evaluate five different DM visual notations. The results show several points of improvement with regards to these visual notations. Furthermore, the results could show the authors of DM visual notations that well-known visual representation principles need to be adequately taken into account when defining or modifying DM visual notations.
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In 1996 innovative, double major teacher education programs for Physics & Mathematics and Physics & Chemistry were initiated at the University of San Carlos in Cebu, Philippines. Both programs require 4 years of study. From the outset the focus was on making a difference in the quality of Science and Mathematics Teacher Education, producing teachers with a good mastery of subject matter and able to teach the subjects in exciting and effective ways in typical Philippine crowded and resource-poor classrooms. The programs recruit top high school graduates using a promotion and scholarship scheme and then expose them to the best science lecturers at the university, and create a special learning environment for the duration of their training. Early 2011 a study was conducted to assess long term effects of the programs through a tracer study of the 300 alumni, interviews, and 22classroom visits to observe their teaching. Of the 300 alumni 245 are still teaching of whom 33 abroad (mainly USA) and 212 in the Philippines. Alumni are highly valued by principals of the top schools in Cebu and their students win many local and even national science competitions. Their teaching is competent with lots of interaction and good subject matter mastery, but they are also facing some typical Philippine education problems.
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Al een tijdje wordt geëxperimenteerd met geprint voedsel. Lizette Oudhuis, lector Food Physics bij hogeschool Van Hall Larenstein vertelt er meer over.
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