Speakers
Description
A group of Italian researchers (RD&RS) reflected for some years on the contribution of the history of physics in teaching/learning physics in secondary school. This group RD&RS cooperate to design the T6 Module of the Master IDIFO2426 aimed at professional development of secondary school physics teachers at national level. A preliminary questionnaire explored the role attributed and the experience in introducing contributions from the history of physics in teaching by the teachers enrolled in the Module T6. RD&RS designed 3 credits of the T6 Module in the Master IDIFO2426 planning 7 interventions by each member of RD&RS group in 2.5-hour sessions, in which two members illustrated examples that constituted significant ways of contributing history to physics education. The interest of the participants was good: the T6 Module was the most chosen among the ten that each student had to select from the 33 training modules offered by the IDIFO 2426 Master. In each session all the RD&RS colleagues participated in the discussion after each presentation. At the end of the T6 Module, we asked each participant to illustrate, in light of the offered contributions and discussions, the perspectives in terms of the potential of history in physics education, how these perspectives had changed with the contribution offered, as well as the production of a short design in which two of the contributions offered for an physics education activity were used. The analysis of the experience conducted offers us the opportunity to identify needs and methods for physics teachers professional development regarding the history of physics.
