Teaching modern physics in secondary school

Abstract

The physics of the last century is now included in all EU secondary school curricula and textbooks, even if in not organic way. Nevertheless, there are very different positions as concern its introduction and students' conceptual knots in classical physics are quoted to argue the exclusion of modern physics in secondary school. Aspects discussed in literature are goals, rationale, contents, target students, instruments and methods. Very different goals, i.e. the culture of citizens, popularization, guidance, education, build different perspectives and aspects to treat selection: fundament, technologies and applications. Methods used are story telling of the main results, argumentation of crucial problems, integrated or as a complementary part in the curriculum. Modern physics in secondary school is a challenge, which involves curriculum innovation, teacher education and physics education research to individuate ways that allows the students to face the interpretative problems and manage them in many contexts and in social decisions. In this perspective, modern physics is an integrated content in curricula involving the building of formal thinking. Our research focus on building of formal thinking is on three directions: 1) Learning processes and role of reasoning in operative hands-on and minds-on phenomena interpretation; 2) object-models as tools to bridge common sense to physics ideas and ICT contribution focusing on real time labs and modelling; 3) building theoretical way of thinking: a path inspired of Dirac approach to quantum mechanics. We developed four different kind of proposals: 1) the physics of modern research analysis in material science: resistivity and Hall effect for electrical transport properties, Rutherford Backscattering Spectroscopy to look to structure characteristics, Time Resolved Resistivity for epitaxial growth; 2) Explorative approach to superconductivity phenomena (a coherent paths), 3) Discussion of some crucial / transversal concepts both in classical physics and modern physics: state, measure, cross section, 4) foundation of theoretical thinking in quantum mechanics.

Issues and Challenges in Teaching Secondary School Quantum Physics with Integrated STEM Education in Malaysia

“…It was seen that the photoelectric effect experiment could improve QP teaching by minimizing the abstractness and facilitate the interpretation of phenomena that could increase students' motivation (Didiş et al, 2014;Michelini et al, 2014). By comparing the classical hypothesis, empirical results, and quantum explanation, this experiment could compare classical physics with the quantum view and anticipate the teaching problem (Asikainen & Hirvonen, 2009).…”

Technological semiotic mediators in didactic to approach cosmic rays and improve students' scientific knowledge

“…Cosmic rays are particles that come from space, interact with the earth's atmosphere and reach the earth's soil. Studying cosmic rays means taking a look into the deeper Cosmos and observing how the universe is built in its fundamental building blocks [12], [14], [19], [23]. To do this, a portable instrument designed by the Gran Sasso laboratories is used, the Cosmic Ray Cube (CRC) which plays the role of counter and tracker and collect data.…”

Answering to physics teachers’ needs in professional development

“…The aspects that obtained the highest evaluations were the acquisition of innovative teaching methodologies (score 4.8/5) and cultural enrichment of the contents (score 4.5/5), motivated by comments such as: "I found it very useful for my cultural education", "The course provided useful information for teaching and clarified important aspects of the contents [the list of specific contents learned follows]", "Access to tools and methodologies not available at the school". From the PCK questionnaires and the didactic projects designed by the trainees teachers it was possible to identify the main role of this type of laboratory [24,28,51,66]: to promote research-based educational innovation in schools, both at the content level (more traditional but still current for physical research and above all linked to modern physics) and at a methodological level (promoting IBL, problem solving, analysis of artefact approaches, use of tools and methodologies typical of research both to monitor learning and to analyze it. This type of laboratory is the ideal context to enable trainee teachers to become researchers themselves in carrying out action research activities.…”

“…Role/strength and weakness of the Experimental Laboratory for the Construction of Phenomenological Laws. In a path laboratory the teachers in formation face innovative research-based educational paths[10, 16, 19-28, 35, 40, 44-45, 50-53], merging a metacultural modality and an experiential one[23,35,[66][67][68][69][70][71][72].…”