Profile

Working areas of the chair

What is didactics of physics?

Physics didactics is concerned in the broadest sense with research and development into the mediation, learning and teaching of physics and teacher training in physics.
In recent decades, it has developed into an independent science with its own research topics and methods, which has established itself in the intersection between the science of physics, educational science and school practice. Physics always takes centre stage as the underlying reference science.
The range of topics is extraordinarily broad: it extends from fundamental analyses of physics content and methods as well as reflections on the nature of physics including philosophical aspects (nature of science) to the development of new topics for physics lessons, development and evaluation of teaching materials, research into learning processes, investigation of the development of skills of both pupils and physics students as well as research into the interest and motivation of pupils and reasons for choosing a career in physics or the natural sciences.
Quantitative and qualitative methods from the social sciences are also used in empirical research on physics education. Depending on the topic, methods from other scientific fields such as philosophy are also used. Physics education is therefore an interdisciplinary science per se.

 
Promoting physics education

Making physics education appealing requires making the fascination of physics tangible, demonstrating its explanatory power and shedding light on the interplay between society, technology and physics.
These tasks are reflected in teacher training, in the further development of physics teaching and in the high-profile activities of physics didactics in Dresden.
Physics content and concepts that should be part of the general education of a responsible citizen must be identified. To achieve this, important basic concepts must be analysed at their core and communicated in an understandable way. Therefore, the design of the teaching of physics is often based on "didactic reconstruction", which links the technical analysis with the perspective of the learners and develops a teaching strategy from this.


Teacher education
The Chair of Physics Education is deeply committed to teacher training. Future physics teachers should achieve a high degree of professionalization through practice-oriented training. Particular emphasis is placed on providing students with a variety of teaching concepts and implementation options.
Teachers are introduced to physics didactic research results in further training courses and receive suggestions for their lessons.