Thinking Physics for Teaching

Abstract

ISBN: 0 306 45192 1 To give an idea about the purpose, content and background of this book, I will first quote extensively from its preface, which says the following: `The research in Physics Education has to do with the search for solutions to the complex problem of how to improve the learning and teaching of physics. The complexity of the problem lies in the different fields of knowledge that need to be considered in the research. In fact, besides the disciplinary knowledge in physics (which must be considered from the conceptual, the historical, and the epistemological framework), one has to take into account some basic knowledge in the context of psychology and the cognitive sciences (for the general and contextual aspects of learning) and some basic knowledge in education and communication (for what concerns teaching skills and strategies). ... We may say that the research started, more than 30 years ago, with a focus on disciplinary knowledge. Physicists in different parts of the western world, after research work in some field of physics, decided to concentrate on the didactical communication of physical knowledge. ... In this period, the importance of the pedagogical and psychological contexts was recognized, but the complexity of the interactions among the different contexts was not at all clear. The complexity in fact emerged about 25 years ago with the beginning of the research on student's ideas. This research shifted the focus of the research on learning problems at first (thinking physics for learning) and then on teaching to foster conceptual change (thinking physics for teaching). ... However, the focus on the disciplinary knowledge in some ways has weakened. This weakening may bring the risk of shifting from the inadequate teaching of "good" physics to the good teaching of "inadequate" physics. It is then time for the research effort to be focused again on the necessary condition for good teaching - the disciplinary knowledge.' With this aim in mind, a conference was organized in Rome, from 22 - 27 September 1994, at which physicists and physics educators came together to present different perspectives on the meaning of thinking physics for teaching. This book contains the proceedings of this conference. The above quote describes a problem with which I wholeheartedly agree, thus intriguing me about the content of this book: what new insights could it contain, compared to the usual literature on research in physics teaching? As this book consists of 41 rather diverse contributions, it is impossible to give a complete overview of its content. I will therefore restrict myself to mentioning some of what I consider to be its main papers. Arons describes some generalizations that he draws from results of research on teaching and learning. Hestenes describes extensively a research programme on modelling theory and about the development of `modelling software for learning and doing physics'. Some other papers, dealing with the use of computers in physics teaching, can more or less be considered as contributions to the concretization of his theory (Thornton, Andaloro et al, Bonera et al). Viennot seeks attention for `essential elements and common views' in the contents of physics, as have been found in research on students' reasoning (such as: `thinking with material objects', `linear causal reasoning', etc). Other papers deal with further reports on such reasoning, both from students (in quantum mechanics) and elementary school teachers (about energy). The `constructive modelling' of physicists themselves receives attention (Nersessian), as does the role of epistemology, ontology and language in physics education (Cromer, Monk, Cini, Herrmann). Some papers deal, more or less, from an educational point of view, with a reflection on some conceptual intricacies (energy and entropy; the superposition principle in QM; the second law of thermodynamics and Maxwell's demon; effective and negative mass). `New' teaching approaches are described, either from the point of view of improving conceptual learning, or focused on the teaching on `modern' topics. Finally, a small number of papers deal with (the aims of) physics education for the `ordinary man', for industry, or for other sciences. As such, this book contains a number of interesting papers and ideas. On the whole, the contributions are of strongly varying quality, which, of course, is to be expected from conference proceedings. The crucial question, however, is whether this book does indeed present a different, content based, perspective on research in physics education, as the aims of the conference would involve. In my opinion, this is not quite convincing. I agree with the feelings of disappointment, expressed by Guidoni in a reflection on the conference. If these proceedings could be considered to some degree as representative for content-based research in physics education, as seen through the eyes of the physicist, then we cannot but conclude that such a research field hardly exists. That is because the contributions are too diverse and scattered, while some seem to have been thought up just for the occasion. Only very few contributions give the impression to be part of what could be considered a real longer term research programme. Apparently, in the physics community a coherent content-based view on research in physics education, on how and what should be done (if at all) seems to be largely lacking. If I understand them correctly, I do agree with Guidoni's and Vicentini's reflections in which they say that, in some way, such a view is badly needed. In it, there will be a role to play for both physicists and physics educators alike, which asks for a strongly improved communication between those groups. If this conference and its proceedings would contribute to letting this necessary communication process get some momentum, then both will have served a valuable purpose. Finally, the book is well printed and most contributions are clearly written. Unfortunately, the use of the English language has not always been sufficiently corrected.