28/10/2020
Aziz Fatima Hasnain
Teaching of physics at high school level
Having taught physics at APWA Govt College Karimabad for 37 years, I am sharing my experiences with students and teachers and also with the parents along with the attitudes and mindsets towards high school education. It is to be mentioned here that teaching /learning system was highly influenced by a grade oriented pattern and it has developed into the criterion of judging an individual's success. All the learning theories seemed to fail against this continuing set pattern of teaching and learning. An attitude has developed among students to obtain good grades by any means. So the short cuts, memorization and cheating has flourished.
The pattern of examination encourages memorization of facts and principles. Transformation of knowledge has become a transferring of textbook materials. Due to this mindsets, teachers have adopted same attitude for dissemination of knowledge. Developing learning skills among students is supposed to be a futile exercise. Administrators and parents force the students to obtain good grades. Nonetheless, the teacher's focus has been on grades; a market of coaching centers has started promising students good grades. The teaching and learning pattern has been greatly damaged by these strategies adopted by teachers. Although the teachers and students have become happy with the ongoing pattern of teaching learning but it is observed that students have started losing skills of learning.
To bring the teaching and learning system on the track of a purposeful process, we at the APWA college, organized a workshop for teachers in 1985. This initiative was applauded by the teachers from higher education institutions and also from different research organizations. The most encouraging message we received was from prof Dr. Abduss Salam (N.L). Since then we have started holding workshops, seminar and conferences for promoting knowledge along with skills based teaching and learning process. After holding first International Conference on Changing face of Physics Education in June 1991, we established The Centre for Physics Education . Prof. Abdussalam gladly accepted our request to be the Chief Patron of CPE.
For holding many academic activities to motivate teachers for bringing change in teaching and learning pattern, we were not able to achieve the goal. Instead of striking our heads on concrete wall, we thought of holding activities for students. For example, we had started celebrations of birthdays of physicists, like prof Salam, Galileo, Newton, Faraday and asked the students to give presentations on the life and work of the physicists. That has developed a new motivation for learning Physics among students. Students were asked to design and perform the experiments that the physicists performed to discover phenomena. We have been successful in developing different skills among students. To develop problem solving skills, we started competitions among students with cash prizes.
At the end, I request education planner to understand the shift that has taken place in the world by the advancement of technology. Before planning curricula, deeply observe the demands of the society. I hope the planned curricula will bring changes in the society.
Now the centre for Physics Education is fully convinced that competitions is the strategic mehod for development of skills. And also it will be a tool for bringing change in the teaching learning pattern.
We are organizing a competition on *breaking the stereotype teaching / learning of Science" for secondary school teachers* in December 2020.
We are hopeful to get good results.
The Centre for physics Education is very well known by national and international forums. The CPE's academic activities were supported by UNESCO Jakarta, Abdussalam International Centre for Theoretical Physics Trieste Italy, Pakistan National Science Foundation, Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. SUPARCO
The CPE represented Pakistan at international forums. The CPE had been National point of Contact at Asian Physics Education Network, a body of UNESCO (ASPEN),
National Point Of Contact at IUPAP commission on Women in Physics.