Pedagogical ideas of the project

Decreasing motivation and competence in physics studies amongst students and prospective teachers has been an issue broadly discussed by educational researches and by politicians (Sjöberg, 2001). To challenge this trend, we designed a project focusing on inquiry based physics learning in outdoor environment.

Recent research in science education has called for the engagement of students in practices that support learning science as inquiry (National Research Council, 2000; Abd-el-Khalick, et al 2004). Inquiry refers to the work that scientists do when studying the natural world i.e. posing questions, gathering evidence and making explanations of natural phenomena. "Inquiry requires identifying assumptions, use of critical and logical thinking, and consideration of alternative explanations" (National Research Council, 2000, p. 23)

We use in this project an approach aimed at teaching inquiry-oriented physics based on students' practical activities undertaken in an outdoor environment, supported by interactive computer visualisations.

Physics is considered a difficult subject, demanding much effort from students. This effort is also associated with memorising formulae for problem solving and working with a range of laboratory equipment.

Previous research indicates that many students perceive physics mainly as applied mathematics and with limited application to everyday life (Popov, Zackrisson and Olofsson, 2000). Students also have problems in seeing connections between models of physical phenomena described by formulae, and their own experiences of reality. Their experience of physics practical work is characterised by strict adherence to cookbook-types (recipe) of instructions on what and how to study.

To overcome such difficulties in teacher education, we use a strategy of changing the context of physics learning - placing it in an outdoor environment and engaging students in inquiry by providing opportunities for posing and solving Ólearning problemsÔ by means of recourse to the Web and experiments in the open air.

The goals and expectations of the project:

The goals of the project are defined as

• To arise students’ interest and motivation to study science
• To provide opportunities for learning authentic ways of science knowledge acquisition
• To facilitate understanding of the nature of science
• To give possibility for students to be more interactive with the learning process

We focus on developing outdoor physics activities and web-resources to stimulate inquiry learning in science teacher education.

The main hypothesis of the project is that the combination of outdoor activities and utilisation of ICT can raise the level of interest and motivation among students in studying physics, and also their learning about inquiry and through inquiry when studying the natural world.

Student teachers will acquire more confidence to teach physics in an innovative way in school because they have the experience of participating in inquiry-type learning, and are able to validate the model for learning science suggested by recent educational research. They will also gain more skills and learned new tools for teaching physics more generally.

Interactive computer models

Development of new interactive computer models (ICM) supporting outdoor activities is important work area of the project. We suggest that ICM can be used for illustration and analysis of observed phenomena or experiment conducted outdoors in order to make physics of the phenomenon more explicit and understandable.

References

Abd-El-Khalick, Fouad, et al. (2004) Inquiry in Science Education: International perspectives. Science Education , 88:397-419

Kondratjev, A.S. (1998). Reshenie vasjnih zadach razvitija uchasjihsja na sovremennom etape shkol'nogo fisicheskogo obrazovanija. V fisika v shkole i vuze. SPb, Obrazovanie. Pp 3-5.

National Research Council (2000). Inquiry and the national science education standards. Washington , DC : National Academy Press.

Popov, O., Zackrisson, I. , Olofsson, K-U. (2000). How student teachers Ñthink physics'. A case study of three groups of primary student teachers with science specialism. Paper presented at international conference: Physics Teacher Education Beyond 2000, Barcelona , August 27- September 1, 2000 .