Designing and implementing materials on quantum computing for secondary school students: The case of teleportation

by Sara Satanassi

Friday 26 Apr 2024, 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 Sara Satanassi, Elisa Ercolessi, and Olivia Levrini: 

The article sets out to contribute to the educational challenge launched by the second quantum revolution. An approach to quantum computing has been outlined for secondary school students. The approach is shaped as a set of four principles that have been pointed out to design instructional materials to enhance the educational and cultural potential of quantum computing, beyond the technical aspects. In the paper, following a presentation of the design principles, we focus on an activity on quantum teleportation protocol. The activity is described in detail to show how the principles have been concretely implemented. A pilot study with a small sample of secondary school students has been carried out to evaluate the potential of the approach. The results, although preliminary, show that the approach appears to be promising in creating an inclusive and productive learning environment, in which students feel encouraged to search for personal ways to combine different levels of discourse (narrative, logical, mathematical, technical-experimental) and generate meaningful descriptions of the phenomenon.

Paper: 

Satanassi, S., Ercolessi, E., & Levrini, O. (2022). Designing and implementing materials on quantum computing for secondary school students: The case of teleportation. Physical Review Physics Education Research, 18(1), 010122. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.18.010122 (open access)

 

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