Colloquium addressed the importance of modeling in the training of future physics teachers

During her presentation, Macarena Soto presented the work developed within the framework of the FONDECYT 11220317 project, which focuses on modeling as a fundamental scientific practice in schools.

On September 24 A new session of the UC Education Research Colloquia, a space for reflection and dialogue organized by the Research Ecosystem of the Faculty of Education. On this occasion, he spoke Macarena Soto, academic at the UC Faculty of Education and teacher of the courses Physics Didactics I and II in the Secondary Education Pedagogy Program in Physics and in the Pedagogical Training Program, who presented the research “Modeling practices for future physics teachers: contributions to their training”.

During his presentation, Soto presented the work developed within the framework of the FONDECYT 11220317 project focused on the Modeling as a fundamental school scientific practiceThrough this approach, he explained, the goal is for future teachers to not only learn physics content, but also to develop the ability to build, improve and apply scientific models that allow them explain, predict, and interpret real-world phenomena.

One of the main axes of his presentation was the critique of traditional forms of physics teaching, often focused solely on the mechanical resolution of exercises. In contrast, modeling proposes starting from the observation of everyday phenomena, promoting argumentation, collaboration and progressive construction of explanatory models by the students. This process not only transforms the learning of the discipline, but also brings school science closer to the authentic practices of the scientific community and to contemporary socio-scientific problems, such as climate change, energy use or technological development.

Along these lines, Soto emphasized that science education cannot be approached solely from a disciplinary perspective. "Complex socio-scientific phenomena do not require the perspective of a single discipline: We need interdisciplinarity, and also the contribution of social sciences, ethics, economics, and even politics. to understand them in all their dimensions," he explained. This approach, he added, opens a promising path toward scientific literacy, understood as the ability of people to participate in an informed, critical and responsible manner in public debates and collective decisions that involve scientific knowledge.

The activity included comments from Stephen Ramos, head of the UC Secondary Education Pedagogy programIn his speech, he highlighted both the rigor of investigative work as well as its relevance to science teaching. "In physics, there are only a few of us who work in teaching and didactics, so having a representative number of people in Macarena's research is an achievement in itself," he commented.

Ramos also shared a key experience in the development of the Initial teacher training standards for physics pedagogies In 2017, he explained, during that process, the team had to identify the most relevant key ideas for teacher training. “After a thorough analysis, we arrived at three fundamental concepts: models and modeling, interactions and conservation"With these three foundations, it's possible to build the entire framework for teaching physics," he noted.

What's interesting, he added, is that this conclusion had an international echo: "Three months after we presented the final document in Chile, the curriculum foundations were published in Singapore, and they were structured around the same three concepts. There was an intellectual convergence that confirms the importance of continuing to research and delve deeper into modeling, both scientifically and pedagogically."

The day concluded with a space for dialogue among attendees, who contributed new perspectives and reflections on how this approach can transforming the teaching of physics - and science - in the classroom.

The research presented reinforces the importance of training teachers capable of Connecting science with everyday life, addressing complex socio-scientific issues, and contributing to a scientifically literate citizenry.