Teaching Physics

This book seeks to narrow the current gap between educational research and classroom practice in the teaching of physics. Research is now moving beyond the recording of the specific forms of common thought to construct and evaluate teaching interventions appropriate to conventional institutional contexts. The approach adopted here makes a detailed analysis of research findings derived from experiments involving pupils, students and teachers in the field. Clear guidelines are laid down for the development and evaluation of sequences, drawing attention to critical details of the practice of teaching that may spell success or failure for the project. Five sequences illustrate the discussion with the following topics: contact, friction and propulsion, pressure in fluids, superposition of electric fields, superposition of coherent waves and optical imaging, and colour phenomena. This all feeds into a discussion of sequence evaluation procedures, underlining the vital importance of teachers' reactions to the detailed aspects of practice proposed to them.