New Themes in Physics Teaching: A personal retrospective

Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr.

Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr. Boise State University

Abstract

For a little over 40 years, what we label now, physics education research, has been conducted. As a result, new themes in the research in physics learning and in physics education have emerged. Some of these themes are cognitivism, qualitative research, learning as construction of knowledge, epistemological underpinnings that are not realist, student understanding-driven pedagogies, and scholarship in fields outside physics. These themes have arisen in minds of our colleagues, who focus their attention on students’ understandings of physical phenomena, instead of how well the students do on conventional tests. Physics education research shows that alternative pedagogies result in a wider range of students making much greater changes in their understanding of the phenomena than the conventional pedagogies, far beyond mere statistical significance. Yet, these themes are still just themes and not major changes in physics teaching as a whole enterprise. Since we know these pedagogies are better for our students and thereby for our culture, the challenge becomes one of how to overcome the hegemonic pressures pushing back toward the status quo.

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