14.7 Conclusions
A considerable number of secondary school teachers in Italy aims at improving
modalities to teach modern physics in the school. Our Physics Education Research
Unit (PERU) from University of Udine was therefore asked to contribute to
in-service teachers’ professional development on this topic.
In this paper both modalities according to which a specific course, MQ_P, was
addressed and some formative outcomes are described in detail. MQ_P was
requested by a group of serious and motivated secondary school teachers asking
for guidelines for the innovation in the curriculum, including crucial aspects of
physics of quanta and relative experiments, to be addressed. Particular attention
was paid to single aspects’ critical analysis and to educational setting of problem
solving and laboratorial activities. In implementing the request we inserted a more
organic part addressing a specific educational proposal on optical spectroscopy,
whose organic unity was re-elaborated to teachers according to designing rubrics
requesting the detection of both educational goals and key questions linked to
activities in an organic educational proposal.
The accurate writing of the educational projects disappointed the expectations
regarding the organic unity in favor of a careful detection of the educational goals
that, for teachers, represent the reference pattern of the main innovative aspects of
the transition between classical and modern physics. Interpretative, modeling and
formal aspects are addressed in conceptual rather than in disciplinary terms for a
multiplicity of nonorganic interpretations. Applicative contexts, as the case of the
potential well and the tunneling effect, are rarely addressed. Addressing and organization of proposals on optical spectroscopy turned out to be quite complete and
significant, since they result to be highly fertilized from the presentation and
discussion of our educational proposal, which was re-elaborated in different ways
maintaining, at the same time, a coherent structure.
Needs to deepen conceptual knots that physics education research (PER) is
pointing out concerning modern physics and optical spectroscopy remain evident,
in particular the conceptual role of every part of an apparatus performing spectroscopic measures and the relative physics is underestimated, the need to separate
macroscopic and microscopic plans, the emission mechanisms and the nature of the
radiation needs to be specifically addressed.
Class experimentation performed by five teachers, designing the optical spectroscopy proposal, ended with the administration of exercises, evaluated only in terms of
correct/incorrect answers without analyzing learning trajectories of the students.
References
Anderson LW (ed) (1995) International encyclopaedia of teaching and teacher education. Elsevier
Science Ltd., Oxford
186
D. Buongiorno et al.
A considerable number of secondary school teachers in Italy aims at improving
modalities to teach modern physics in the school. Our Physics Education Research
Unit (PERU) from University of Udine was therefore asked to contribute to
in-service teachers’ professional development on this topic.
In this paper both modalities according to which a specific course, MQ_P, was
addressed and some formative outcomes are described in detail. MQ_P was
requested by a group of serious and motivated secondary school teachers asking
for guidelines for the innovation in the curriculum, including crucial aspects of
physics of quanta and relative experiments, to be addressed. Particular attention
was paid to single aspects’ critical analysis and to educational setting of problem
solving and laboratorial activities. In implementing the request we inserted a more
organic part addressing a specific educational proposal on optical spectroscopy,
whose organic unity was re-elaborated to teachers according to designing rubrics
requesting the detection of both educational goals and key questions linked to
activities in an organic educational proposal.
The accurate writing of the educational projects disappointed the expectations
regarding the organic unity in favor of a careful detection of the educational goals
that, for teachers, represent the reference pattern of the main innovative aspects of
the transition between classical and modern physics. Interpretative, modeling and
formal aspects are addressed in conceptual rather than in disciplinary terms for a
multiplicity of nonorganic interpretations. Applicative contexts, as the case of the
potential well and the tunneling effect, are rarely addressed. Addressing and organization of proposals on optical spectroscopy turned out to be quite complete and
significant, since they result to be highly fertilized from the presentation and
discussion of our educational proposal, which was re-elaborated in different ways
maintaining, at the same time, a coherent structure.
Needs to deepen conceptual knots that physics education research (PER) is
pointing out concerning modern physics and optical spectroscopy remain evident,
in particular the conceptual role of every part of an apparatus performing spectroscopic measures and the relative physics is underestimated, the need to separate
macroscopic and microscopic plans, the emission mechanisms and the nature of the
radiation needs to be specifically addressed.
Class experimentation performed by five teachers, designing the optical spectroscopy proposal, ended with the administration of exercises, evaluated only in terms of
correct/incorrect answers without analyzing learning trajectories of the students.
References
Anderson LW (ed) (1995) International encyclopaedia of teaching and teacher education. Elsevier
Science Ltd., Oxford
186
D. Buongiorno et al.