We present an educational path for teacher professional development whose primary purpose is to enhance physics teachers’ knowledge and awareness of topics related to quantum computation and quantum information, and of their relevance for technological advancement. Besides their objective importance, also stressed by several authors and projects, the choice of topics not traditionally covered in the final year physics curricula also arises from the concrete possibility of developing a multidisciplinary path, able to represent under a unified perspective several subjects treated in secondary school physics and mathematics. The project is realized in the context of the Italian PLS (Plan for Science Degrees) and the education section of the Quantum Flagship. Due to the limitations related to the COVID-19 pandemic it was entirely delivered in the form of synchronous distance learning and was attended by around 30 teachers. Asynchronous discussion was performed using both generally available tools (Google drive, forms etc.) and a dedicated online forum set up on the servers of the University of Pavia. We discuss the structure of the educational path and the results of the first part of the course whose purpose was describing the transition from classical to quantum computation. In general, from both the written pre-questionnaire and the mid-course interviews, strong appreciation and fascination emerge for the cultural significance of the introduced topics and connections.

We first present the evaluation of a professional development course for in-service teachers on quantum technologies which was initially presented at the GIREP Malta 2020 webinar about halfway into its development. The primary purpose of the course was to enhance physics teachers’ knowledge and awareness of topics related to quantum computation and quantum information, and of their relevance for technological advancement. However, our choice was not to present such topics as a simple addition to high school physics in the final year, but rather to inspect the whole physics and mathematics curriculum in the search for a longitudinal perspective, roughly based on the relationship between physics and computation, which could culminate in the treatment of quantum information topics. In the present contribution, we will focus on the educational outcomes of the course in terms of teacher appreciation, interest level and judgement of usefulness coming from both a final questionnaire and individual interviews. We will also describe a follow-up course structured to frame the topic from the standpoint of curriculum design and action research projects currently underway.