New trends in physics teaching, v.4; The ... - unesdoc - Unesco

New Trends in Physics Teaching IV
CONCLUSION
My proposals for an escape from the physics education dilemma are directed towards the education
of physics teachers. Apart from reliable subject competence, the teacher trainer needs
practical experience in the school classroom, must learn to simplify subject content, can’t be
successful without a certain psychological competence, must be able to create in his own classroom
an open and stimulating learning atmosphere free of fear, and owes his student teachers a
general model of teaching which is in accordance with his educational philosophy.
This includes a range of expertise not normally possessed by physics professors. Practical
pedagogics, sociology, psychology, philosophy and general didactics are, besides physics, the
main constituents of such an inter-disciplinary approach. In addition, history of science, linguistics
and information theory often contribute to the improvement of a physics teacher’s education. A
single person is overtaxed if he is to engage deeply in all these disciplines. A physics teacher
educator, normally being at home in physics, should try to get access to one or two of the other
subjects so that co-operation with specialists of these fields becomes possible. This teamwork
of professionals from different disciplines must be done in a physics-specific way. In Dortmund,
we have such a team. In our Didakticum, a psychologist and a specialist of general didactics
join us. They have learned some physics in the Didakticum so that they can relate their contributions
closely to physics. Another psychologist offers, in teamwork with us, seminars on ‘psychological
problems of learning physics’. A philosopher guides seminars for our physics teacher
trainees on such topics as ‘Hypotheses and Scientific Laws’ or ‘Ethical Problems with Respect
to the Development of Science and Technology’. Willingness to learn from each other is a requirement
which must be met, otherwise this kind of co-operation would not work.
This is our way out of the physics education dilemma. It is determined by a lucky coincidence
which made it possible to constitute our team. But a statement of J. Colbeck [ 261 must certainly
be taken as true by all physics teacher educators: ‘. . . we, as physicists in the universities, colleges
and schools, have to look for the remedy in ourselves. We must have made the teaching of physics
look unattractive or we have allowed it to become so. Perhaps we have also made physics itself
look unattractive in spite of our own enthusiasm for it or, worse still, because of our enthusiasm
for it. (We may have seemed to put nuclear physics before people, for instance.)’
REFERENCES
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2. BLACK, P.J. ‘Physics Curricula and Courses at the Undergraduate Level.’New Trends in Physics Teaching, IZI.
Paris, Unesco, 1976.
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5. ARONS, A.B. Using the Substance of Science to the Purpose of Liberal Learning. Journal of College Science
Teaching, Vol. 10, No. 2, November 1980.
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7. FESHBACH, H.; FULLER, R.G. University-School Coaperation.Physics Today, April 1981, p. 11.
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Teaching, ZII. Paris, Unesco, 1976.
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