The pre-service physics teacher education model implemented by the FFC
research project involving 8 Italian Universities: guidelines and preliminary
results.
R. M. Sperandeo-Mineo
Dipartimento di Fisica e Tecnologie Relative- Università di Palermo (Italy)
sperandeo@difter.unipa.it
Many conferences and papers have documented a growing dissatisfaction with the quality
of physics teaching and learning and have called for widespread changes in objectives and in
practice of teachers and learners. Moreover, many papers on teacher education report that preservice teachers bring to teacher education coursework a subject-matter understanding very
different from the kind of conceptual understanding that they will need to develop in their
future pupils. This has been shown in many fields of science education [1, 2], and physics in
particular, where it is well documented [3] that the procedural understanding of physics, that
pre-service teachers typically exhibit in university physics courses, is not adequate for the
teaching of physics according to many proposed innovations involving deep changes in
contents and pedagogical methods. This mismatch points to the need to transform and deepen
prospective teachers’ understanding of subject matter, and to redirect their traditional ways of
thinking about subject matter for teaching.
This paper describes the guidelines and some preliminary results of the physics teacher
preparation model developed within the FFC (La Fisica per la Formazione Culturale) Italian
Research Project, supported by the Italian Ministry of Research and Education (MIUR). The
project involves 8 research groups of different Universities: that is the majority of the
university groups involved in research on physics education in Italy. They are constituted by
university researchers and experienced teachers (in many cases collaborating with the
Universities from many years).
The focus of the Project [4] is on the finding out components of teaching and learning,
that are essential to a cultural transmission in scientific areas (in particular, physics and
mathematics), and on supporting both planes of understanding, and motivation to
understanding. Its aim can be schematised as follows:
ƒ
The production of a model-proposal for the construction of paths (PERCorsi) of
development of the basic culture in physics (knowledge, competences, motivations) at
all levels of pre-university schooling;
ƒ
The production of a model-proposal for the university pre-service preparation
(FORMazione) at university level of teachers of primary and secondary school. The
model also involves possibilities of implementation in settings of in-service training.
By synthesizing, the first objective is mainly connected with the implementation of new
approaches to physics teaching, and the second one with the physics teacher preparation,
though the two aspects are strongly interacting.
Given the topic of the Seminar this paper will focus mainly on the second objective. It is
structured in three parts: 1) The theoretical underpinning; 2) The guidelines and characteristics
of the Project’ approach; 3) Some preliminary results of experimentations of the teacher
preparation model and the main conclusions.
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1. The theoretical underpinning
In order to understand the background of the model of teacher preparation
implemented by FORM, the structure of pre-service teacher preparation in Italy is briefly
described.
To teach in secondary schools (both lower and upper level) all teachers must possess a
disciplinary university degree, usually 4 years for Mathematics and Physics, 5 for
Engineering. After the degree, prospective teachers acquire their professional preparation
through a two years Specialization School that requires an entrance test, given the programmed
number. Consequently, the Specialization School presumes that the disciplinary preparation of
prospective teachers has been completed during their disciplinary degree. Then, teacher
training usually consists in scientific courses involving disciplinary didactic, history and
epistemology of the discipline and courses about education.
The experience accumulated in the first implementation of the Specialization Schools
shows that such hypotheses are generally not adequate, in Physics as well as in many
Scientific Areas. This for different reasons, mainly depending from the following facts:
ƒ
The knowledge of the discipline supplied by the university curricula is focused on
contents (laws and theories); processes which characterise the discipline and
connections with the real phenomena are very soon effectively disregarded.
ƒ
Teaching methods of degree courses, usually, involve a teaching approach based on a
lecture format; experimental science courses include some laboratory activities, often
restricted to the verification of regularities and laws presented during the class periods.
Trainee teachers assume this kind of direct learning experience as university students,
as the guideline of presentation of the discipline. Then, it has been considered necessary to
offer examples of teaching and learning approaches based on different methods and strategies.
Moreover, the new pedagogy assigns new roles to teachers: that is a teacher that has to
transform himself or herself from being a 'dispenser' of knowledge to being a 'coach' managing
the evolution of student skills and shaping their knowledge [5, 6]. Can we suppose that trainee
teachers make alone this transformation? Our hypothesis is that it is relevant the need to offer
direct experience of these new roles.
As a consequence, our research project has been structured by taking into account a
twofold aim:
•
From a theoretical point of view, we aimed to gain a better understanding of factors
which either promote or hinder the development of good teaching practice.
•
Moreover, our study aimed to contribute to the research-based design of physics teacher
education courses.
The starting point of FORM-Project is the awareness that models of pre-service teacher
preparation are strictly correlated with approaches (methods, strategies and contents) of the
physics to be taught. If our main aim is in modifying the physics teaching approach by a
procedure of transmission of consolidated knowledge to the implementation of
teaching/learning environments where teachers, manage and support the pupil’s processes of
knowledge construction, we have to be involved in deep modifications of the structure of the
teacher training courses [3, 5]. We assumed that in order to communicate new knowledge and
new behaviours, we need teachers' training strategies that build the new knowledge on the
previous one. Many research results report that there is a close parallelism between how the
change occurs in pupils' scientific conceptions and how a change in the conception of teaching
can be produced [1, 7]. In fact it has been shown that:
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ƒ
teachers who learn in a different way may be oriented to teach in a different way;
ƒ
well founded change in teachers' didactic activity involves also a conceptual
change.
Many researches have tried to analyse what science teachers know and what they do, in
their classrooms. Different kinds of knowledge and competencies have been recognised as
relevant. They are very difficult to factorize or separate in well defined groups. A picture that
can, perhaps, capture them and their relationships is that of a net where, as first order
approximation, regions of similarity can be pointed out and evidenced, but not enucleated
from the context.
The recent literature and
many reforms in the field of
science teacher education suggest
that teacher preparation has a
"threefold structure with the
anchoring points being teachers
Subject
Matter
Knowledge
(SMK), Pedagogical Knowledge
(PK) and Pedagogical Content
Knowledge (PCK)" [8].
The idea of a tripartite structure
can be found in many papers,
starting from some Shulman's
papers, where these domains of
knowledge are represented as
separate but interacting [9, 10].
Among the many characteristics of the teacher’s Subject Matter Knowledge analyzed in
the literature our project focuses on :
•
The quality of knowledge (focusing on conceptual knowledge and on the analysis of
the relationships between qualitative and quantitative understanding).
•
The procedural knowledge (focusing on experimenting, modelling procedures and
analysis of the relationships between problem solving and problem posing).
•
The knowledge about Science (focusing on the relevant points of the historical
development and their sociological accounts).
•
The epistemological framework (in the sense of clarifying what is the nature of the
entities constructed by Science to explain “facts”, laws and theories).
In the area of Pedagogical Knowledge our project focuses on the need to make explicit
some relevant elements of the adopted cognitive model, as for example:
•
to know is a building process (mainly a process of making connection among existing
individual knowledge and new information);
•
it is context dependent (it depend on the context, including pupils’ mental states);
•
it needs scaffolds (that is, it needs supporting tools).
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Many researches have tried to analyse what can be defined as Pedagogical Content
Knowledge. Perhaps, the Shulman’s [10] definition is, up to now, the best definition, since it
acknowledges the importance of the transformation of the subject matter knowledge per se,
into subject matter knowledge for teaching . He described PCK as:
“…representations of ideas, powerful analogies, illustrations, examples,
explanations, and demonstrations….. including an understanding of what makes the
learning of specific concepts easy or difficult: the conceptions and preconceptions
that students of different ages and backgrounds bring with them to the learning.”
(Shulman, 1987).
Our project is focused on some components of PCK, like:
•
To supply different representations of a given content that are suitable for teaching.
•
To connect these representations with appropriate and coherent teaching strategies (this
is a very important point, very soon we suppose that our teachers become constructivist
through lectures describing constructivism).
•
To focalise on pupils’ common-sense knowledge and learning difficulties in the
different physics fields.
Methods and strategies implemented by FORM can be described in a context of teaching
learning environments schematised by figure 2. These are structured in such a way to involve
The Teaching/Learning environments for Trainee Teachers
Figure 2
Trainee Teachers (TTs) in activities focusing hands-on learning and metareflection, by
stimulating them to explicit their mental representations and the involved explanation-building
processes through negotiation in collaborative inquiry [11]. Moreover the setting is such to
make TTs experience the same learning environments they are supposed to realise in their
future classrooms. Appropriate pedagogical tools (often based on ICT) are supplied, in order to
help them in conceptualising and in gaining the abilities connected with experimental and
modelling procedures.
The core of the project is made up by a set of operative tools that we have called “WorkPackages for teacher preparation”. Each WP is focused on a given field of physics, or a given
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set of phenomena, or a given approach, or a teaching/learning strategy . They are supposed to
constitute a guide and a resource tool for teacher trainers, although not a rigid and prescriptive
series of guides. They present a self consistent proposal for a teaching learning approach in a
given field, but with clear indications about the links with other fields. In fact, teacher
knowledge and competencies in a given field must be framed in a unitary background of what
physics is and how it operates.
Obviously, the WPs prepared by the various research groups are different in many aspects,
but all share some common characteristics: the pathways for their structuring and
implementation. The staring point has been the attempt of interlacing the fields of the specific
physics content and that of the teaching/learning problems, by making transparent these interconnections and the consequent choices. In each content specific area, concepts and conceptual
schemes, the underlying constructs, the epistemic accounts, have been analysed and connected
with the results of research involving the pupils’ conceptions and representations, the pathways of reasoning, what is known about the context dependence of learning, the constructivist
approach and so on…….
As a consequence, the WPs, product of such analysis, contain:
•
examples of teaching/learning sequences that discuss the links with the global rationale
of the approach;
•
the rationale of the scaffolding tools and support materials (many work-packages
introduce Informatics Tools, as cognitive tools);
•
the learning knots and the ways are they faced;
•
the critical teaching details (that is, what can seem a detail but in effect is a critical
point for a correct understanding);
•
teachers’ common problems in classroom implementation.
Actually, the physics fields explored involves topics of classical physics as well as topics of
quantum physics. Others are in preparation. However, the project does not intend to be
exhaustive, but to prepare prototypes containing the necessary elements to orientate TTs
toward the construction of an appropriate Pedagogical Content Knowledge.
Concerning the classical physics, the topics explored are the followings:
ƒ
RTEI: Real Time Experiments and Images, (E. Sassi and co-workers, University of
Naples) involving the study of Motion and Forces focusing on the use of the PEC
(Prediction Experiment Comparison) learning cycle and exploring a phenomenological
approach from complex real phenomena to ideal cases.
ƒ
A first approach to Thermal Processes (M. Michelini and co-workers, University of
Udine) aimed to a first multidisciplinary introduction to thermal property of matter,
starting from hot/cool sensations to thermal processes and focusing on heat and
temperature concepts.
ƒ
PROTERM: from Thermal Processes to Entropy (R.M. Sperandeo-Mineo and coworkers, University of Palermo) mainly aimed to correlate macroscopic properties of
matter to microscopic models, in order to describe and explain thermal processes from
a microscopic point of view.
ƒ
The different forms of internal energy (L Borghi, A.De Ambrosis P. Mascheretti,
University of Pavia) reporting a deep analysis of microscopic models that can describe
the different forms of internal energy (not only in gases but also in solids and liquids)
and aimed to a better understanding of the First Principle of Thermodynamics.
5
ƒ
The Generalised Kinematics (M.Vicentini University of Rome and R.M. SperandeoMineo University of Palermo) aimed to present a possible unitary description of
phenomena belonging at different fields of physics, in which a process starts by
triggering a removal of a constraint. It focuses on the different steps of this unitary
approach: the pointing out of the relevant physical variables, the experimental singling
out of the variable relationships and the searching for a unitary explanation.
In the field of quantum physics, the project studies different approaches evidencing
different points of view. Their main objective is in stimulating TTs in rethinking, from
different perspectives, their previously acquired knowledge.
•
The first approach (C. Tarsitani, University of Rome) can be characterise as
phenomenological and exhaustive: - it points out that some phenomena cannot be
explained without quantum mechanics and radical changes in the representation of
physical systems; - it introduces a new conceptual and formal structure (the
mathematical theory of linear transformations) as a typical transversal tool which
unifies, at least formally, different sectors of physics.
•
The second approach (S. Rinaudo, University of Torino) is mainly oriented to outline
the historical evolution from Classical Physics to Quantum Physics and from Quantum
Physics to Quantum Mechanics by pointing out continuous paths and conceptual/
methodological jumps. It is focused on the Feynman’ paths approach.
•
The third approach (G. Vegni and M. Giliberti, University of Milano) is focused on the
field concept by re-thinking the classical physics from this point of view and by
pointing to the Quantum Theory of Fields. It presents a coherent approach, not
necessarily chronological, in fact, some recent experiments are described.
•
The forth approach (M. Michelini and co-workers, University of Udine) can be called
“Approaching Quantum Physics following the Dirac’ path”; it is focused on the
concept of quantum state and on the superposition principle and introduces an easily
understandable formal mathematical formulation (that is,Vector Spaces and Linear
Operators).
Two kinds of experimentations have been performed: the first one involving the authors of
the WP and their students; the second one involving different Universities.
The validation procedures have been based on the analysis of data collected from a variety
of sources:
ƒ
open answer tests
ƒ
logbooks of the Trainer and Observers (when present),
ƒ
the analysis of TTs’ worksheets and other empirical material prepared by TTs ,
ƒ
the final task, where the TTs were required to design Learning Activities, inspired
to the WP rationale, and to test them in class practice, during their apprenticeship
work.
Moreover, TTs were requested to prepare a portfolio: a dossier built by the TTs’ including
the results of their individual work as well as comments about the structure of the presented
materials. It gave us information about the ways TTs perceived the proposed approach and the
proposed activities and tools.
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3.Preliminary results and conclusions
The analysis of the experimentation results is in progress. However, some preliminary
conclusions can be drown by comparing the experience of the different groups and analysing
these on the light of the literature’ results.
Our research induce us to put forward several inferential claims, that are important for
teacher educators and subject-matter specialists:
1. Exemplary teaching practices, that wishes to take into account the new role of teachers,
necessarily include the interaction of SMK, PK, and PCK.
2. A constructivist philosophy is required to fully “appreciate” the interplay among these
three different kinds of knowledge and their role in teaching and learning.
3. The nature of such interaction may be, sometime, counter-intuitive to our notions of
teaching. In fact, it is many times shown that an increased emphasis on SMK does not
necessarily affect instruction; rather, it is more likely that an adequate PCK can
influence SMK.
Our results, as well as some results reported in literature [12], give a picture of the
development of Pedagogical Content Knowledge that calls into question some implicit
assumptions of research. In fact, PCK involves a transformation process, but this
transformation does not seems the same that Shulman described. PCK construction does not
involve only knowledge of pedagogical presentations, of instructional strategies and of
pupils’ preconceptions or learning difficulties. It is not a unidirectional shift from subjectmatter to pedagogical content knowledge: in fact, PCK development is not always a matter of
directly converting any kind of existing subject matter knowledge. Often, TTs need to embrace
a different notion of what understanding physics means, and this requires a fundamental shift
in their notion of what to know physics entails, at concept-level as well as at epistemic-level.
We need to consider that the key ideas in teaching high school physics tend to be centred
upon the experiential world and knowledge background of learners (usually called the
common-sense knowledge). Moreover, the key ideas of physics, learned in the university
courses, represent its logical and formal structure in the final forms of the scientists’
understanding of the subject matter at the present time. The knowing of concepts or principles
of a higher level theory does not ensure a sound understanding of concepts, principles,
analogues and representations belonging to the world of actual objects and commonsense
experiences. In fact, to know the theories reported in the physics books does not mean to have
a clear understanding of physics as a set of procedures and results useful to know reality: i. e.
what Dewy, as first, and recently many epistemologists have called Physics as a Cognitive
Theory[13]. Our results, as well as results reported in literature, show that this usually does not
occur, but the two planes, experiential and theoretical, often are maintained separated in the
TTs’ representation of the reality.
These findings strengthen our starting point: the need to explicit what kind of physics is the
physics to be taught. In fact, it is almost indubitable that how teacher educators/researchers
define SMK has important implications for how TTs define, analyze, and develop their PCK.
This involves that the programming and implementing teacher preparation courses
preliminarily need clear and detailed answers to question such as: how the key ideas in the
discipline are related to the key ideas in teaching.
By synthesizing, our main result rests on the observation that the transformation of
knowledge is not a one-direction process, from subject matter knowledge (SMK) to
pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), as sometime the literature suggests. On the contrary,
this transformation appears to be founded on a dialectical ‘‘interaction’’ between trainee
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teachers ’conceptions of subject matter, and appropriate pedagogy. In fact, the construction of
a subject-matter pedagogy (PCK) needs relevant changes in the knowledge of subject matter
itself (SMK) and these changes play the role of trigger this construction process.
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