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Education Sciences
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Physics Education–Educational Design from the Very Small to the Entire...
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Physics Education–Educational Design from the Very Small to the Entire Universe

A special issue of Education Sciences (ISSN 2227-7102). This special issue belongs to the section "STEM Education".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2023) | Viewed by 4797

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Massimiliano Malgieri

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of physics, Università degli Studi di Pavia, 27100 Pavia, Italy
Interests: physics education; quantum physics

Special Issue Information

Dear colleagues,

The aims and scopes of physics education research (PER) have grown considerably wider in the past few decades, but a privileged place is still occupied by the design, testing and evaluation of content-based learning environments, interventions, and resources. Such research within PER has been often, though by no means always, framed in terms of broad categories such as teaching learning sequences (TLS) and learning progressions (LP). In many cases, design-based research (DBR)-type frameworks, notably including the Model of Educational Reconstruction (MER), have provided guidance to researchers in the design, testing and revision process.

The journal Education Sciences has asked me to serve as guest editor for a Special Issue focusing on educational design in PER, over the broadest possible range of contents, “from the very small to the entire universe”. While there have been similar thematic Special Issues in other journals in the past, the most recent one dates, to my knowledge, to about 20 years ago. It is my conviction that, in such time span, design methods in PER have evolved and improved considerably, and perhaps even more importantly, that the base of researchers working on educational design in PER, who are founding their research efforts on validated research paradigms and practices, has significantly expanded. In other words, the community has grown and has evolved towards a greater and greater research professionalism, and correspondingly, the quality of research products worldwide has increased.

For this reason, I am now inviting you, respected colleagues who I believe share an interest for educational design in Physics, to contribute to this Special Issue. The ideal contribution to the Special Issue, in consonance with the standards of the most recent research in the field, should have a solid grounding in research paradigms for educational design, and contain an extended discussion of how the choice of a framework has guided the design process. Furthermore, descriptions of learning interventions, environments, and materials should contain an evaluation of their effectiveness, with specific goals, and clear and unambiguous criteria to decide whether the objectives have been indeed met or not, and how research will proceed in either case. Examples from all levels of instruction, from K12 to university, will be considered.

It is my hope, dear colleagues, that you will accept my invitation as an opportunity to showcase the latest and most significant efforts of your research group in the area of content based educational design in physics.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Massimiliano Malgieri
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • physics education
  • educational design
  • teaching learning sequences
  • design-based research

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

22 pages, 1586 KiB  
Article
Teaching and Investigating on Modelling through Analogy in Primary School
by Leonardo Colletti, Soufiane Krik, Paolo Lugli and Federico Corni
Educ. Sci. 2023, 13(9), 872; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13090872 - 26 Aug 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1262
Abstract
Physics deals with complex systems by reducing them to relationships between a limited number of relevant quantities and general principles. Since we live in a reality characterised by an increasing complexity in all fields, an indispensable challenge arises for education to turn basic [...] Read more.
Physics deals with complex systems by reducing them to relationships between a limited number of relevant quantities and general principles. Since we live in a reality characterised by an increasing complexity in all fields, an indispensable challenge arises for education to turn basic science instruction into a key stage of education per se. Is it possible to introduce some aspects of the physics approach as early as the first school years? Which ones, how, and with what results? Here, results of the initial phase of a three-year project on complexity are presented. This educational innovation path has been developed for elementary and middle schools and is designed as a gentle introduction to complex and systemic thinking. It aims to foster in children reasoning by analogies and the development of simple but effective and versatile basic concepts. The project exploits the use of the small set of primary metaphors already available in children’s cognitive toolkit to apply them to describing the characteristics of various circuits, from marbles to water and air to electricity. Pupils’ feedback was analysed through a single case study with a qualitative and quantitative methodology. Results were encouragingly positive and showed a wide range of abilities to capture and develop analogies on the topic of the circuit. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Physics Education–Educational Design from the Very Small to the Entire Universe)
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12 pages, 4816 KiB  
Article
Exploring Effective Physics Teaching Strategies in High Schools during the COVID-19 Pandemic
by Roberto Luca Mazzola, Paolo Gondoni, Matteo Bozzi, Juliana Elisa Raffaghelli and Maurizio Zani
Educ. Sci. 2023, 13(8), 799; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13080799 - 04 Aug 2023
Viewed by 1864
Abstract
The need for educational approaches that comply with the restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic has raised a number of critical issues for students of different age groups. The delicate transition between high school and university has become a key point to focus [...] Read more.
The need for educational approaches that comply with the restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic has raised a number of critical issues for students of different age groups. The delicate transition between high school and university has become a key point to focus on, leading many institutions to replan projects dedicated to students involved in this transition. A Physics vocational training project for high school students was carried out in the school year 2020–2021, and it was replicated in the school year 2021–2022. The project included webinars, self-assembled laboratory group experiences, and peer evaluation. The starting point on which we designed our project is that learning is an experience; thus, we built the entire project by particularly focusing on two peculiarities. One peculiarity is the assessment methods: student presentations describing their own experiences were evaluated by teachers and their peers. The second peculiarity is the open approach with respect to how students handle experimental activities. We present a description of these projects along with the results of an evaluation survey filled out by the participants and a descriptive analysis of the assessment strategies. Students appreciated the design of the entire project and, better still, the peer evaluation process. Moreover, we discovered that the evaluation provided by the teachers is lower compared to the assessment reported by the students. This disparity holds potential significance from a statistical perspective and warrants further investigation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Physics Education–Educational Design from the Very Small to the Entire Universe)
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32 pages, 46617 KiB  
Article
Investigating the Principle of Relativity and the Principle of Equivalence in Classical Mechanics: Design and Evaluation of a Teaching–Learning Sequence Based on Experiments and Simulations
by Alessio Marzari, Marco Di Mauro, Tommaso Rosi, Pasquale Onorato and Massimiliano Malgieri
Educ. Sci. 2023, 13(7), 712; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci13070712 - 13 Jul 2023
Viewed by 1008
Abstract
We designed a teaching–learning sequence on relative motion in classical mechanics, based on the model of educational reconstruction and on the fundamental design principle of highlighting those conceptual elements which could be valuable in the future learning of special and general relativity. Thus, [...] Read more.
We designed a teaching–learning sequence on relative motion in classical mechanics, based on the model of educational reconstruction and on the fundamental design principle of highlighting those conceptual elements which could be valuable in the future learning of special and general relativity. Thus, we propose an educational reconstruction strongly focused on the principle of relativity and the principle of equivalence. To highlight selected key concepts and motivate students in their exploration, we used a series of experiments based on video analysis and interactive simulations, which can be modified on the fly by the students. These tools are useful to stimulate autonomous investigation and to support the modelling of different physical situations. The sequence of activities was designed for students in introductory physics courses and was tested with a group of 24 undergraduate students in an online lab course, in which some distance learning techniques were also studied. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Physics Education–Educational Design from the Very Small to the Entire Universe)
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