Challenges in Teaching Physics: Personal Insights and Recommendations

1. Teaching Physics, Personal Views and not only Personal Experience Jiří Dolejší Institute of Particle and Nuclear Physics, Charles University Prague jiri.dolejsi@mff.cuni.cz GIREP 2004, Ostrava, July, 23rd

2. From consumer (e.g. student or parent) point of view teaching physics is frequently not satisfactory Abstract: Author’s opinions (in some respect maybe controversial) on teaching and learning physics in the current world with current means and with current teachers and students will be presented... A hardly objective statement, more probably an inadequate generalization ... Why do I think so?

3. Why am I not happy with the school physics? • I like physics, it is my work and my hobby, but I can see children being stressed by school physics. But there are still many students who like physics and want to study it ... • Meeting some physics teachers creates frustration - How can these people explain something, how can they attract somebody to physics??? How can they cope with the world around us evolving so quickly??? But I know personally many teachers who are perfect in my eyes ...

4. Looking at some physics textbooks creates a surprise – why are they so grey, why do they insist on rigid formulations, why do they contain a “pseudoscience”? ... a standard formulation of Archimedes´law with the following appendix: The law holds only for chemically inert bodies ... But there are wonderful old and new books ... • The school education in physics results after years in remembering just few formulae and few incoherent and unusable pieces of knowledge. • The school physics is quite well separated from the current science. We heard on Monday about HST and project dealing with a-particles detected by diffuse cloud chamber

5. The experts in the physics education sometimes have the language different from the language of the physicists. Why don't these two groups communicate? There are systematic efforts to create links between physicist and teachers (HST at CERN, Physics on Stage, ...) • The school physics is practically the same for decades but there are so many new things in the world. Where are the new technologies? Plenty of contributions at this conference shows new topics, new methods, new experiments and also some new technologies ... Danger, skip the next slide!!!

6. There are also some other, heretic questions: • Is Physics necessary at school? • Is Physics necessary for everybody? • If yes, in which extent, which topics? • If yes, what are the reasons? • Having thesereasons, does the school physics really meet the expectations?

7. I can continue with the complaints but I also feel guilty, because I participate personally on education of future teachers!!!

8. We are trying to do the best during the studies, we play the role of difficult children at the final exam and we require to be adequately taught. The selfdefence We are quite frequently unhappy!!

9. I wrote in the abstract: The starting point should not be the existence of a respectable science by itself and the aim should not be only tuning the performance of its heralds. The goal is to help teachers to earn respect with their orientation in the world and science, to offer attractive opportunities to learn physics at school and after it. These opinions are illustrated with examples of activities within the author’s reach of sight. I welcome any comments, criticism, suggestions ...

10. What to do? In abstract: Author thinks that the desirable features of teaching are the integration of different methods, the employment of different subjects (i.e. attracting excellent teachers and communicative people from science and industry), the courage for permanent experimentation and sensitivity for evaluating the results. But there is the existing environment, the departments educating future teachers with their inertial habits, the absence of the systematic in-service teachers training ...

11. Education of future teachers

12. Excursions for students – education and contact with the science CERN 2000

13. Help for in-service teachers • Seminars on problem solving (related to the Physics Olympiad) • Seminars on new technologies and on specific physics fields (Nuclear and Particle Physics) • Contributions to the Heureka project (rememberMonday presentation by Irena Koudelková and Leoš Dvořák)

14. Heureka in more detail • Regular weekend seminars on different topics (12 per year) • Seminars on specific physics fields (Nuclear and Particle Physics)

15. Heureka in more detail Seminars should help in basic orientation in given field, they should enhance the qualification of teachers, stimulate the contacts and bring fun. Nuclear Physics in Czech manner: Teachers measure the decay law of the beer froth ...

16. Some of the Heureka seminars are special – here Physics and Climbing

17. Excursions for Heureka teachers From Prague via Munich to Geneve and Chamonix

18. Physics (Science) on Stage Geneva 2000 Communication & Collaboration Institute of Physics, Academy of Sciences Dept. of Physics Education, Charles University Teachers PhD Students Inst. of Particle and Nuclear Physics, Charles University

19. Outreach Access to science for students, teachers and anybody interested. Particle Physics in Czech Republic

20. Outreach and Media ( public) A Break-through in Understanding the Universe?

21. Outreach and Media ( public)

22. Outreach FyzWeb - Web server dedicated to physics and his „Ask the experts“ section fyzweb.cuni.cz

23. Outreach – some other efforts We aim at building Science Centre in CR - several teams exist in Prague, Brno, Ostrava and Liberec .... But let us turn to teaching again

24. Teaching aids

25. & outreach materials

27. Teaching aids Scales Particle Physics Experiment LHC, ATLAS, ...

28. Conclusions Too much work to be done, but some results are visible. I think Europe needs some attractive goals to be aimed at. Maybe good education and “intellectual wellness” might be a good one. Thanks to organizers for inviting me to this conference. Thanks to everybody surviving my lecture for patience.