Helping Preservice Teachers Implement and Assess Research‐based Instruction in K‐12 Classrooms

The Physics Education Group at the University of Washington offers special physics courses for preservice teachers. The three‐quarter sequence helps prospective teachers develop an in‐depth understanding of some of the important basic concepts they will teach. The guided‐inquiry pedagogical approach provides them with an opportunity to learn as they will be expected to teach. As a result of the course, preservice teachers also come to recognize some conceptual and reasoning difficulties commonly encountered by students. A culmination of their experience is a teaching practicum in which the preservice teachers apply what they have learned to instruction in middle or high school classrooms. Observations of the preservice teachers as they design, teach, and assess their lessons contribute to our understanding of the type of preparation needed for them to be able to teach physics and physical science by inquiry.