Strand 9: Teacher Professional Development
Poster Session - 2.05
Date & Time: 05.07.2012 / 13:00 - 14:00
Room: D406 (3rd Floor)
Professional development of
teachers in research based co-planning
of intervention modules in physics
Giuseppe Fera, Marisa Michelini, Emanuele Pugliese, Alessandra Mossenta, Lorenzo Santi, Sri Prasad
Challapalli, Alberto Stefanel, Stefano Vercellati
Research Unit in Physics Education, Unuversity of Udine, Italy
Introduction
A significant and effective teaching/learning of physics requires didactic laboratories,
where hands-on/minds-on activities [1] and RTL [2-4] involve the students in the
interpretative challenges of relevant phenomena from the point of view of the
physics, its application, daily life [5-6], with gradual assumption of responsibility
over their own learning [7-8], through a "conscious" process of analyzing problems,
criticize experiments, selection of alternatives, planning investigations, "construction
of coherent arguments "[9]. Professional development of teachers is a crucial point, to
translate these research results into teaching practice in schools, which can be
answered by co-planning activities by teacher-researchers [10-11].
The IDIFO lab as research contexts
Study and setting up of modalities of co-planning didactic laboratories were research
objectives of the project IDIFO3 PLS [12] of Physics, coordinated by M. Michelini,
in the activities performed in the presence in the biennium 2010/2012 by the
Research Unit in Physics Education (URDF), University of Udine [13].
These workshops have been implemented for three phases, often carried out in
parallel: co-planning, experimentation, evaluation. They were the context to give
answers to the following research questions:
RQ1) Role played by research in physics education for co-design of innovative
educational paths to be implemented in schools.
RQ2) mode of interaction between in service teachers and researchers effective for
this purpose.
RQ3) Major critical.
The monitoring of the phases of co-planning, educational projects developed by
teachers, the documentation of the results were the main sources of research data.
Characteristics of the IDIFO labs
Laboratories as a Training Modules for Teachers and Students conducted under the
project are all set IDIFO3 PLS (PLS 2009), activated from the involvement of
teachers, who co-designing learning interventions based on the exploration of
problem situations and follow its educational path, monitoring the students learning
personally engaged in activities (hands-on and minds-on) based on educational
strategies and testing methods qualified by extensive research on active learning [1-7,
15-15].
They are all of 30 hours,
corresponding to 3cfu carry out in
presence or at a distance,
differentiating for duration of the
preparatory phase, of testing and
evaluation phase, according to the
following 7 types:
• LabA - PLS Laboratories Type A (10 hours co-plan
by teacher-researcher analyzing innovative proposals
and design new educational paths; 16 hours of testing in
the classroom; 4 hours of data analysis)– education Labs
focused on a specific topic (ie: em induction; thermal
phenomena; electrostatic phenomena), aim to face the
main learning problem in literature and using an Inquiry
based learning strategy, using lab activities involving
on-line sensors and ICT in general;
• LabIDIFO3 - Training labs for IDIFO teachers (14 hours of general and
characterizing education, 5 hours of co-planning, 6 hours of experimentation in the
classroom with students and 5 hours of data analysis) – The topics are the same of lab
A. The peculiarity is the time devoted to the teacher formation, equilibrated with
respect to the time of the experimentation (as emerge from research indication).
• LabPSOF - Problem solving Laboratories for formative guidance in physics (10
hours of preparation, 6 hours of work based on the Popular Problem Solving method
with students, 2 hours of discussion of the solutions, 2 hours of discussion of
epistemic and meta cognitive aspects, 10 hours reworking teacher and as many of the
students).
Laboratories of shorter duration are:
• EPOGG Masterclass - The activities involving 70 universities in the world is
described and addresses http://www.physicsmasterclasses.org/mc.htm It provides a
day's work of researchers with students who engage in the collection and analysis of
research data from large accelerators (CERN)
• LabEXPLO - exploration of operational
activities with students in special and informal
contexts (exhibitions, workshops dedicated) for 3
hours
• CLOE - Conceptual Exploration of Operative
Labs - Activities with students to explore the
conceptual frameworks for school operating base
(1-3 hours)
• MF – (only For the teachers) Training modules of a general nature and
characteristic of advanced topics in computer network
The PLS Laboratories for secondary schools involved 15 schools, over 30 classes and
800 students in three Italian regions (Friuli VG and Veneto in the north-east and
Calabria in the south) and covered the following topics chosen by teachers:
Energy,
RTL on Motion
RTL in Electrostatic,
Advanced physics
experiments,
Diffraction optics,
Electromagnetism,
Thermal phenomena
with sensors;
Superconductivity.
Laboratories PLS for basic schools (kindergarten, primary, middle school) involved
24 schools, 47 classes of Friuli VG, over 800 students concerning: Thermal
phenomena; Energy, Sound, Fluids, The measure, Study of motion, Concept of time.
Resumen of the lab in Upper secondary school:
Advanced Physics Experiments
Energy and laws of conservation
Diffraction and physical optics
Lab RTL-Motion
Lab RTL Electrostatics
EM educational paths
Thermal phenomena educational
paths
Superconductivity
Resumen of the lab in primary al middle school
CLOE EM
CLOE – Middle school
CLOE – FT e En
Exhibit
Lab A on Thermal phenomena
Energy Lab
Lab on Fluids
The measurement in physics
Study of motion
Lab on the concept of time
The laboratory: experiments in advanced physics.
The laboratory is based on a set of
experiments of modern and advanced
physics consisting of thirteen
apparatuses that allow the realization
of over 20 experiments (see Table).
The laboratory (unique in Italy), was
developed with the projects IDIFO1
and 2 of the PLS and experimented
with both students and teachers, in the
workshops of the Master IDIFO and
in the three editions of the summer
schools on modern physics [16-17].
Title
Description
Frank e Hertz
Measurement of the atomic energy transition in
mercury
Analysis with refraction grating of emission
spectra of different elements
Measurement of the ration e/m for the electron
with the Helmotz cols methods
Acquisition with on line sensors and analysis of
the light intensity distribution
Operative introduction to the light polarization
as property of light and his role for
comprehension of the quantum state
Malus law and transmittivity of polaroid using
on line sensors
Measurement of the Hall constant for different
materials
Measurement of the resistivity vs T for metals,
semiconductors and superconductors
Exploration of the Photoelectric effect and
measurement of h
Measurement of the Avogadro number
Emission spectra
e/m for the electron
Optical Diffraction
Polarization
Light transmission
Hall Effect
Resistivity vs T
Photoelectric effect
Avogadro Number
Thermionic Effect
Speed of light
Ramsauer Effect
Exploration of the dell’effetto termoionico con
un diodo a vuoto
Measurement of the Speed of light in different
medium
Resonant quantum absorption of electrons in Ar
atoms and evaluation of the mean value of the
radius of the atom
Laboratory on light diffraction and optical physics
The laboratory develops from an experimental study of optical diffraction collecting
the diffraction pattern with on-line sensors (an apparatus
outcome of research project teaching and development
dell'URDF and patented by the University of Udine [18]
The educational proposal provides a quantitative analysis of the
diffraction pattern to recognize the peculiar characteristics [19].
The modeling of the phenomenon based on a hypothesis of the
wave nature of light allows to obtain a good fit of the
experimental distribution. The wave nature of light is then
recognized on an experimental basis. The lab integrate the study
of light polarization.
Laboratory on Superconductivity
The laboratory on superconductivity is based
on the materials developed in European
projects Supercomet and MOSEM 1 and 2
[20] (Greczylo et al. 2010) and in particular
equipments for the measurement of the
resistance vs T of samples of metals,
semiconductors and superconductors of
measures Hall coefficient [21].
The Laboratory in the Basic School on Energy
As an example of PLS laboratory for basic school the laboratory energy is here
illustrated. The research based educational path of reference for the lab involve
children in the analysis of energy conversion processes involved in simple games and
experiments.
Each proposal is offered as an operational context in which children discover a new
kind of energy or a new process of transformation. They build the new language step
by step description of the phenomena based on the concept of energy, unique
negotiating meanings of words such as hold, process, dispose of, transfer energy to
children in dealing with this path [22-23].
Results.
From the monitoring of co-planning laboratories, there are various roles played by
PER. Educational proposals based on research and related educational materials
(www.fisica.uniud / URDF – [14-15,224]) have formed: the basis for teachers'
choices of topics to be addressed, subject themselves to the study and analysis phases
of joint planning, refer to the design of educational path design and experimented by
teachers in the classroom. The research on student learning have implications in
reflection activities with teachers, in terms of nuclei on which to discuss the typical
ways in which the difficulties of the students arise and are recognized, how they are
addressed in the scholastic tradition and teaching as well in the research proposals.
The three phases of co-planning have been developed in different ways:
1) an initial meeting to define issues and work program, in some cases
supplemented by a general seminar discussion of issues and problems of
science and teaching that will be addressed;
2) 3-4 subsequent meetings to define content, experiments, work materials, work
program in the classroom, which occurred in the analysis or experiential mode
of learning materials based on research and proposals for use with the children
themselves, or as laboratory of educational design based on the reorganization
of the research based reference materials, or as action research implemented via
shared paths of experimentation, the results obtained and problems
encountered, ongoing redesign of operations, or design and setting up of new
proposals experienced in class and then monitored with research
methodologies.
An innovative formative methodology involved university researchers in the
development of path with students when the teachers monitored, with subsequent
discussion on the lines of development of the educational activity, ways of
integration it in curriculum planning, knots of students emerged.
The experiments in the classroom have provided different methods of
implementation: autonomous experimentations of the teacher, based on co-design and
evaluation conducted by the researchers, co-conduction by teacher and researcher and
collaboration in monitoring, feed-back to work with students and directions for the
redesign of the intervention; conduction in successive phases by teacher and
researcher following a common educational path.
Among the main critical elements emerged, the following are identified by teachers:
a) need for broader, deeper and continuous support than the provided by the
guidelines of the PLS
b) tendency to delegate to its role as a university lecturer teaching
c) suspicion of educational innovation, especially in high school has been accepted as
qualified on the cultural orientation or..
d).. distrust in the use of ICT in the didactic laboratory, especially in basic education;
e) difficulty in analysis and qualitative summary of the results learning of the
children .
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