Australia currently has an acknowledged shortage of physics trained high school teachers, leading to many teachers teaching out of area. In 2018 UNSW introduced a graduate certificate in Physics for Science Teachers to help trained teachers learn physics and become qualified to teach it. This seminar will look at the design, development and delivery of this degree.
The design of the degree has been student focused, with material created with the needs of practicing teachers in mind. Examples of this include giving details of how to conduct demonstrations and experiments, opportunities to share teaching resources, and references made to where the topics occur in school syllabi.
In the program the learning materials comprise of short videos, specifically made for each course, followed by questions to ensure the students have understood the material. These are presented through the Openlearning platform which was chosen because it encourages interactivity and is visually appealing. Online assessments are conducted through Moodle due to its more sophisticated quiz question types (STACK) and ability to use Turnitin.
In 2018 the degree was predominantly online, but included three face-to-face weekends where students conducted experiments at UNSW. These weekends were hard for rural students to attend and so in 2019 the degree was converted to be entirely online. Experiments are now conducted at the teacher’s schools and written reports are submitted for marking. Teachers can sit the final exam at UNSW or under invigilated conditions at their school.
About Liz
Liz is the first year director and EF academic in the School of Physics. She has recently introduced an online graduate certificate in Physics for Science teachers. She has recently been awarded an AAUT citation for contributions to student learning, become a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and been made a fellow of the Scientia Education Academy. Read more here...
Event details
Access the presentation and Echo360 recording of the seminar here
To access the live stream link, access is via our Moodle site (self-enrolment key: unswconnections)