Developing a teacher professional learning workshop on the general theory of relativity

by Stuart Farmer (IOP, Scotland)

Thursday 1 Dec 2022, 09:00 → 10:00 Europe/Zurich

From the big bang to black holes, from elementary particles and the fundamental interactions that govern our universe to the world's largest and most complex scientific instruments, our knowledge of the world builds on modern physics. To make our current-best understanding available to all, we need to invest in educational research and bridge the gap between those who know science, those who teach science, and those who learn science. 

This month, we are going to discuss a paper by Stuart Farmer on the development of a teacher professional learning workshop on the general theory of relativity:

The development of a teacher professional learning workshop to support the General Relativity section of the Scottish Qualifications Authority Advanced Higher Physics course for 17-18 year old secondary school students is described. This professional learning workshop is designed to support the development of teachers' subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge so they are better able to provide a conceptual, non-mathematical approach to teaching curved spacetime, spacetime diagrams and evidence of the tests for General Relativity. The professional learning workshop draws on a number of resources including the educational outreach materials from the Perimeter Institute.

Paper:

Farmer, S. (2021). Developing a teacher professional learning workshop on the general theory of relativity. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 1929(1), 012057. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/1929/1/012057

Recording_Farmer.mp4