Bücher der Reihe Challenges in Physics Education

This book describes novel approaches designed to enhance the professional training of physics teachers, and explores innovations in the teaching and learning of physics in the classroom and laboratory.

This book describes novel approaches designed to enhance the professional training of physics teachers, and explores innovations in the teaching and learning of physics in the classroom and laboratory.

This book presents research contributions focussing on the introduction of contemporary physics topics - mainly, but not exclusively, quantum physics - into high school currciula.

This book presents research contributions focussing on the introduction of contemporary physics topics - mainly, but not exclusively, quantum physics - into high school currciula. Despite the important advances and discoveries in quantum physics and relativity which have revolutionized our views of nature and our everyday lives, the presence of these topics in high school physics education is still lacking.  In this book physics education researchers report on the teaching and learning of quantum physics from different perspectives and discuss the design and use of different pedagogical approaches and educational pathways. There is still much debate as to what content is appropriate at high school level as well what pedagogical approaches and strategies should be adopted to support student learning. Currently there is a greater focus on how to teach modern physics at the high school level rather than classical physics. However, teachers still lack experience and availability of appropriate teaching and learning materials to support the coherent integration of Quantum Physics in high school curricula. All of the 19 papers presented in this book discuss innovative approaches for enhancing physics education in schools.

This book presents the most up-to-date research contributions focusing on progress in the field of physics education. It provides researches and results that are based on the most relevant matters in physics teacher education and how these matters can be improved for the satisfaction of both teachers and learners. The work is the by-product of the collaboration between GIREP (the International Research Group on Physics Teaching) and the University of Malta. The contributing authors present close examinations of the following topics: ICT and multimedia in teacher education; experiments and laboratory work in teacher education; the role of quantum mechanics in teaching and learning physics; formal, non-formal and informal aspects of physics education at the primary level; strategies for pre-service physics teacher education at all levels; and in-service teacher professional learning strategies. The editors hope that many different stakeholders within scientific academia will find something of value in this compilation of the current most advanced ideas in physics education.

This book focuses on some important aspects of Physics Education: the role of metaphors in Physics teaching and learning, the connections between Physics and Mathematics, the interaction of young children with Physics at the primary level, and recent developments in teacher education in the USA. Contributors present their research related to: ¿ Preparing teachers for TPACK (technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge) and laboratory work. ¿ Developing and evaluating teacher PCK (pedagogical content knowledge) in Quantum Mechanics. ¿ In-service Physics teacher education for early childhood and primary levels. ¿ Pre-service Physics teacher education at all levels. ¿ In-service Physics teacher professional learning for second and higher-level education. Chapters in this book inevitably look into how Physics teacher education is organizedin different countries. Suggestions are offered for possible ways of supporting Physics teachers¿ learning. An emphasis is made on the much-needed measurements of the effectiveness of different teaching strategies that improve teaching for learning.All this should help professionals, researchers, and pre-service, as well as in-service teachers to get acquainted with the most recent research contributions in the field.