Preparation of New Physics Teachers in the Light of Goals of Physics Education

Abstract

In some of our previous articles, we have analysed and discussed the goals of physics education at secondary schools and some aspects of physics education at the secondary school level. In this contribution, we proceed with bringing our experience with the preparation of new physics teachers at Comenius University in Bratislava. We discuss the theoretical background we used as a base for preparing the curriculum for university students – future physics teachers and we highlight some aspects of their preparation. Especially, we focus on the development of abilities to scaffold the learning of their future secondary schools' students. In details, we describe the ways we try to improve the abilities of our students to scaffold their future secondary schools' students in concept formation, in process skills development, in planning and processing inquiry, ability to scaffold effective work with literature. As a vast majority of our graduates will teach their secondary school students in Slovak language, which is a language used by a small number of people (5 mil), we discuss also some specifics related to physics textbooks for secondary schools in Slovak language, university textbooks available in Slovak language and ability of our university students-future physics teachers to work with sources written in English. At the conclusion, we propose some possible improvements, hopefully, inspiring also for preparation of physics teachers for other educational systems.