A new group, meeting together for the first time, needs to achieve a common understanding fairly quickly and after introducing ourselves and the jobs that we do we then turned to achieving a consensus on the words which we would use such as, primary schools (age about 5-12 years), secondary schools (age about 12-18 years) and university or higher education (18+). Many other words were discussed too and the discussion was very revealing about the way in which teacher training is carried out in many countries. Amazingly, at the end of this, we concluded that we had much more in common with each other than we had differences. The group who met to discuss this topic consisted of (19-25) participants, from ten different countries*. Most were present throughout in spite of many other groups which they could join and whose topic demanded their attention. After initial introductions the group decided what they wanted to discuss and topics were written up, by the participants and leaders, on the board each morning as they entered the room. At the end of the day participants were asked to write down comments on what they said, or would have liked to have said if there had been more time, and these comments were handed to the rapporteur each morning. This report is drawn from the rapporteur’s written record made at the time and all the written comments made by the participants.

A. The teacher training system

The system of training teachers which has evolved can vary considerably from country to country, and even within one country , due to different factors, like:
1. the educational culture of the country;
2. the historical development of teacher training;
3. the school system;
4. financial resources;
5. the supply and demand for teachers;
6. or other factors not listed. We are limiting our comments to those countries represented in the workshop..

However the spectrum of systems had two ends which were recognisable by most of the group.
1. Concurrent degrees in which physics, teacher education and classroom practice were integrated into a single degree. As the degree progresses then the balance between physics and physics education studies normally changes. Students may choose to become a trainee teacher before the course commences or at some point along the way.
2. Consecutive degrees in which a physics degree is first obtained and then a masters degree or a diploma course follows, either immediately after the degree or after a break of many years.
It should be said that there are many variations between these two extremes.

B. The ideal teacher

In order to clarify the teacher training process we collected together some ideas of how we would recognise an ideal teacher
Teachers should be aware of:
1. their own concepts and understanding of physics and the effects of these teaching;
2. their understanding of the philosophies of science and their effects on their methods of teaching;
3. the variety of teaching methods and be flexible in using them;
4. their students’ conceptual understanding of physics;
5. their student’s interests;
6. the ‘world view’ as seen by young people;
7. and be positive and respectful towards their students;
8. and be sensitive to the classroom situation.

C. ‘Mind the gap’

1. There are many ‘gaps’ between different aspects of teacher training and closer communication should be encouraged so that every partner understands what the other is doing. For example the senior professor of physics needs to understand what is happening in physics education across a wide field such as in the primary schools. Some of the gaps identified exist between primary schools, secondary schools, HEIs*, initial teacher training institutions, in-service education institutions, education research, and the policy makers. These links between different communities flow in many directions and are extremely complex; policy makers and higher education are not there just to dictate to the schools otherwise messages may not be passed along the way. Even the simple words and concepts which we use such as model, research, aim and tool may have different meanings in the school and HEI environment. If there is no common language then there is no communication. This language problem pales into insignificance when considering the ‘world languages’; few teachers are able to read education research journals which are frequently written in English.
2. The gap between Teaching and Learning. One of the major definitions of teaching is that teaching should bring about learning. If the student is not learning then the teacher is not teaching however much the teacher is talking, nothing is being absorbed by the student.
3. The gap between the theory drawn from research in education) and the practice of education acquired by the ‘reality shock’ on entering a school. Researchers in Education should be encouraged to write for the practising teacher and not just for themselves. Education journals contain too much jargon which cannot be penetrated by the practising school teacher. Trainee teachers should be taught how to access and apply the results of educational research in the same way as PhD physics students are taught how to do literature searches. Final assessments of trainee teachers, such as in written projects, should assume a knowledge of research related to their project. By learning how to access the research literature the new teacher would have access to continuing self education which could build into in-service training and further accreditation.
   Some thought about the idea of assigning a week to the discussion of the same topic in both the HEI and the schools made a lot of sense. For example the topic of Language could be discussed from the point of view of research on language use in general and language use in science education which could be discussed in the HEI. In school, trainee teachers could discuss the use of text books and written work for different aged pupils. In this integrated way the research topics would make more sense in the school environment. Trainee teachers need to be exposed to schools early in their training so that what they learn in the HEI has relevance to the practical situation in the classroom. Trainee teachers also need a lot of time to reflect on their experiences both alone and with the several groups to which they belong in the HEI and in schools. Filling every minute of the trainee teacher’s day with timetabled activities is counter productive.
4. The gap between Academic Physics and Physics Education (didactics, pedagogy, school practice). The didactics of physics education need to have more impact on the way in which the physics courses themselves are taught in the HEI.
5. The gap between teaching in physics departments and physics education departments. This gap is frequently created because trainee teachers must move amongst many departments in the HEI many of which may have little idea of what the other is teaching and how they are teaching it. There was also concern about the relative amount of time which a trainee teacher spends on different aspects of their course. This could be a real problem for European accreditation of teachers. A related issue is the number of academic subjects which a trainee teacher must take such a physics, other sciences, mathematics, and whether they are relevant for their future career.
6. The gap between those who are professional physicists and the rest of society in which they live and work. This is a major problem which needs to be addressed at many levels. The Science in Society movement has done a lot of good work but there is much still to be done. The wider community has a very important influence on the careers of young people and so the image of the physicist and the physics teacher within the community is a very important influence on pupils. The relationship between teachers and policy makers of all kinds may also have weak links.
7. The gap between physics societies and teaching societies. Both of these types of society need to talk together at the highest levels. Too many Scientific/Physical Societies tend to be exclusive institutions and school teachers are not welcomed as members. Sadly it is often the shortage of teachers or changes to the school curriculum which causes Science/Physics Societies ‘to sit up and take notice’. Support for the teacher trainee is essential as in many cases they may have no representation in either an academic or professional society. It was discovered that commitment to teachers from the Academic Societies varies from country to country and many of them have no contacts with schools. Indeed many Societies have either a passive or even a negative attitude towards the training of physics teachers. It was suggested that all national societies affiliated to EPS* could do a survey of the percentage of their members who were school teachers. The services which the Societies provide for schools could also be surveyed.
8. The gap between the ‘conditions of service’ between physicists, physics teachers and physics teacher trainers is very real and it is felt most by those, such as mentors, who have to work in both institutions.
9. The gap between physics teachers and other science teachers, mathematics teachers and the rest of the teachers in school needs to be considered if only because a pupil may work with up to eight teachers in a day and the message about common topics, such as energy, could be very different from each teacher and perhaps counterproductive to the learning process
10. The gap between graduates from different countries and the international job market has consequences for all, particularly across the rapidly expanding European Union. Validation of qualifications, so that trained teachers can teach across the European Union, still need more attention.
11. Gender issues were discussed as a Gap because of the greater number of male physicists than female physicists in most countries though some countries reported that it was not a problem. There was little time to discuss the efforts which are being made to encourage more girls to take up the physical sciences and engineering. An example of research using video tapes of a lesson in which male teachers taught boys and girls separately and then together caused some teachers who took part to be ashamed of how they ignored girls in mixed classes. Some participants thought that gender issues were culturally based and that they may even be an Anglo-Saxon construct. (More research here!). The IUPAP conference on Women in Physics in Paris in 2002 was referred to. The Physics Olympiad appears to attract a disproportionate number of boys while the International Young Physicists’ Tournament attracts a higher proportion of girls.
12. Multicultural issues were also mentioned but the topic was too big for us to discuss in detail. Like gender issues it was more relevant to some countries than others but all felt that gender, multicultural and social issues should be part of the education of all trainee teachers. We discussed no further than declaring that there should be fairness in considering the culture and preferred learning styles of all; being fair to an accurate account of the history of science; being sensitive to considerations of subject content and religion

In addition other areas were mentioned which included, the gap between education and parental understanding and the whole issue that knowledge plays within the cultural context.

Reducing the gaps

We did begin to discuss how some of the above problems could be alleviated.
1. We need to ensure that there is public awareness of what teachers and teacher trainers do.
2. Physics education articles need to be written for physics research journals. The articles need to be integrated into regular issues of the journal because academic physicists have a habit of putting special teaching issues of a journal into the waste bin! More information on international comparisons such as TIMMS and PISA should provide interest to academics about the relative effectiveness of their own school system.
3. Teacher training for all HEI professors and lecturers needs to be developed. Some countries are beginning to experiment with this training and accreditation for HEI professors.
4. All those involved in training teachers need to talk together and arrange conferences together rather than crying out in despair. Web sites need to be set up in local areas to link all those with a professional interest in physics education. These web sites could be used, for example, to convey information rapidly on changes within one sector of the education system to another sector.
5. Maybe the only way to reduce the gaps in the education and training of physics teachers is to create a discipline of Physics/Science Education and Teacher Training.

D. Mentoring

The trainee teacher is caught between two aspects of his/her training; the classroom practice aspect and the HEI learning. In integrated courses the trainee teacher has to behave as a professional teacher for part of a week and as a student in higher education for the rest of the week. The trainee teacher is caught between the demands of those who teach him/her in the school and the HEI.

Mentors/tutors appear in many guises. They may be:
1. school teachers who receive trainee teachers into their school in addition to doing their own teaching in the same school. Some of the mentors will either be paid extra for doing this work, be allowed a lighter teaching load in school or receive nothing at all. Others will spend 50% of their time in school and the other 50% in the teacher training institution.
2. school teachers who are invited to spend a year in an HEI and then return to their school;
3. employees of the HEI.

What is clear is that the role of the mentor needs to be more clearly defined. The first priority of most mentors is to the school students that they teach. If trainee teachers are to teach the mentor’s classes then the responsibilities of the student teacher, the HEI teachers and the mentors need to be carefully worked out. For some mentors their status within the school increases and promotion ensues; others just feel over worked with the authorities taking little notice of their problems. Some of those involved in mentoring suffered from a lack of time for thinking and doing research because of living in two worlds, but at the same time seeing the importance of this interface between the HEI and schools..

Mentors have a variety of duties in school:

1. Introducing trainee teachers to the school.
2. Linking what is learnt in the HEI to the knowledge needed in schools. Mentors should be part of the course design team in the HEI.
3. Helping the student teacher to come to terms with the complex demands within schools from designing the curriculum, setting and marking tests and examinations, and looking after school students and their problems.
4. Some may have to assist the trainee teacher to plan, teach and evaluate their lessons. This is normally the role of the mentor when the mentor shares the same subject specialism as the student teacher. This role normally requires helping the student teacher to evolve from a role of observing lessons, through team teaching with the normal classroom teacher to teaching complete lessons on their own. This may have followed a period of simulated lessons in the HEI for which the mentor might also be responsible. Trainee teachers take an enormous amount of time to plan their early lessons fully and so call on the mentor’s time for continuous help. Trainee teachers also need to practise self evaluation and critical reflection on their lessons with their mentor. Some mentors may video the student trainee teaching and then analyse their lessons according to some evaluation grid.
5. Mentors spend a great deal of time encouraging weaker trainee teachers and in the end they may have to recommend that the trainee should fail to qualify as a teacher. The Code of Practice for this will need to be clear and unambiguous as in some countries this can lead to litigation as well as a feeling of having failed the student.
6. There are also the training needs of the mentor to consider and their training of other school colleagues who will not have the advantage of close links with the HEI.
7. 7. Many mentors in school deal not only with trainee teachers but also newly qualified teachers at the beginning of their teaching career. ‘Probationary’ periods may last one or more years and links back to the HEI should be made so that evaluations of the training process, in the light of early teaching careers, can be made.
8. Mentors should also have a strong commitment for the creation of a community in school and the HEI which is interested in life long learning and educational research.
9. At the end of this long list thoughts must be given to what should be done with weak mentors.

When a trainee teacher teaches a class then the school students may not be taught as well as they would have been if their normal class teacher had taught them (sometimes they may be better taught!). School student results might be impaired and parents and school authorities complain. Everyone agrees that professionals have to take their first professional steps be they surgeons, lawyers or teachers and that they need to practise on someone but few wish the practice to be on them!

Student teachers have the problem of being on ‘both sides of the desk’. One day they may be demanding work from their school students in school and the next their teachers in the HEI may be demanding work from them. This can lead to problems for the student teacher of an identity crisis nature.

Another problem was identified for some, that of language. The word ‘mentor or tutor’ was reserved by us for the school teacher who takes on the role of looking after student teachers in school but what of the person who is employed by the HEI and who looks after trainee teachers in the HEI and in school. This person may be called ‘supervisor’, ‘subject lecturer/tutor’, ‘methods lecturer’ and so on. The problem here may be caused by the way in which the teacher training is carried out in the HEI. It may be the responsibility of one department, such as an Education Department to being the responsibility of many departments such as the Physics Department, Didactics Department and the Pedagogy. Department The supervisor is seen by us as someone in the HEI who prepares a trainee teacher for work in school. It was extremely difficult to assign a name to all the roles played in schools and HEIs which would reflect accurately what was done in different countries but this is the best we could do.

Recommendations

1. The mentor should be fully affiliated both with the school and the HEI so that the experiences of the trainee teacher are coherent.
2. The consequences of this would be improved communication between the school and the HEI and the mentor would be able to participate in the design of the trainee teacher’s curriculum.
3. The mentor’s status would increase and they would be seen as the central person concerned with the learning and welfare of the trainee teacher.
4. Mentoring requires resources of time, money and materials. The job of a mentor is too important to be left to the ‘goodwill’ of those doing it. Mentoring can also be a lonely job and mentoring teams need to be set up.

E. Examples of skills for physics teachers

It is not enough just to list all the skills which a teacher needs to have but it is also important to find ways to teach these skills. It is also no longer enough, if it ever was, to say that teachers are born as teachers and that they know instinctively what to do. We must also remember that a physics teacher is a physicist as well as a teacher and these two ‘poles’ may not be equally balanced in the consciousness of any one teacher.

1. Subject knowledge (physics knowledge) is learnt in many ways in the HEI. In some cases physics trainee teachers are taught alongside future physicists and engineers and there is no differentiation of their courses. Others are taught their physics in an integrated physics and education course. Yet others will do a physics, or cognate science, degree with no intentions of becoming a teacher at the beginning of their course. It would be helpful to future teachers if physics professors had some understanding of pedagogic, didactic and physics education research knowledge so that trainee teachers were taught their physics in a way which would relate to the methods of teaching they were to use in school. Teachers need to have their physics knowledge firmly rooted in the Science in Society issues of the day and so will need to generate their own relevant information. Teachers also need knowledge from related subject areas such as biology, chemistry, earth sciences, astronomy and mathematics to list but a few. Trainee teachers need to work on their own knowledge searches as part of the assessment of their course.
2. Methodological skills are needed so that teachers are able to translate their physics knowledge into lesson plans. Lesson planning need pedagogical knowledge drawn from educational research as well as subject knowledge.
3. Practical skills need to be developed by trainee teachers so that they can design and set up experiments and investigations in school using standard equipment but they also need to be able to design low-cost demonstrations using everyday materials found around the home and the home workshop. Practical work in primary schools is based on using everyday materials both for reasons of cost and also relevance to the pupils.
4. In today’s world no physics teacher can be without computer skills. Pupils expect physics lessons to use up to date equipment for the normal ‘office skills’ of writing a report using word processing, producing charts and graphs using spreadsheets, using databases and the internet to search for scientific information, and communicating using e-mail. Experiments can now be attached to data loggers and the results analysed in more detail than ever before with great ease. However ICT workshops at this Seminar were dealing with this topic and so it only required a mention here.
5. Trainee teachers must be able to translate curriculum statements into teaching routes. National teaching schemes govern the curriculum structure and examination syllabuses are often the real teaching guidelines for use in the classroom. Each school needs to be able to develop their own teaching curriculum which relates to their school and then each teacher needs to develop his/her own lesson plans which take into account the needs of all the pupils they have to teach. It is at the classroom interface that teachers can use their imagination and enthusiasm for the subject which will motivate their pupils. It is also here that considerations of the social, cultural, multicultural, and ability of the students can be taken into account.
6. Teachers need to be able to construct a variety of educational tools for monitoring their pupils and evaluating their work.
   Testing materials need to be designed and the answers marked with the results being conveyed to their pupils in ways which will improve pupil progress. Examinations need to be coherent with the teaching scheme. Pupils taught by modern day methods, such as teaching for understanding or using techniques developed using constructivist theories, will not do well on examinations which assume rote learning and memorisation. Many courses today stress the phenomenological side of physics more than the mathematical, problem solving side and so examinations stressing equation manipulation and mathematical processes would not reflect the teaching process.
7. Self evaluation: Evaluating one’s progress and success or failure as a physics teacher is a skill which has to be taught. Check lists are frequently produced so that an observer in a lesson can make objective judgements using defined criteria. Trainee teachers are encouraged to evaluate their own progress using the same grids. ‘Every action has a consequence’ to quote freely from Newton and the trainee teacher needs to be able to connect what s/he has planned and carried out with the effects on his/her pupils. Knowing the epistemology and history of physics as well as the aims and methods of teaching physics aid the trainee in evaluating his/her progress. Trainee teachers are full of idealism for their new career and they should try to keep it; the jaded ‘old timer’ may have more knowledge of the practicalities of the classroom but they can dampen the enthusiasm of the trainee teacher. Trainee teachers evaluating the best and worst teachers they have met may help trainee teachers to understand what the pupil expects from a teacher.
8. Communication skills: Without communication then nothing would pass between teacher and taught. There are many aspects to this huge topic which requires a seminar of its own. Obviously the language used needs to be understood by the pupil. The teacher’s talk needs to be planned and questions need to be developed; worksheets may have to be written for the differing ability levels in the classroom; posters can be used by teachers and pupils in order to convey the results of the teaching process to everyone.
9. Consciousness of school complexity: Schools are very complex institutions and those who look after trainee teachers in school need to realise how daunting a school can be. The mentor has an important role in introducing the trainee teacher to the school.
10. The teacher is an individual but s/he is also involved in team work belonging to many different teams. The pupil belongs to a complex home-school environment. The pupil also belongs to a class (many classes) and to the school as a whole. The teacher belongs to these too, as well as belonging to the school staff and all the educational support services. A teacher who cannot work as a member of these interacting teams will be a trial to his/her colleagues. Trainee teachers need to learn team working skills by working in groups during their training .
11. Recent educational research has shown that there are a variety of teaching and learning styles and so teachers need to have many teaching styles which can be matched to individual learning styles of pupils. Unless a school employs individualised teaching schemes then this means that teachers should ‘play fair’ in using different teaching and learning styles in their lessons. There needs to be coherence between the aims, evaluation and teaching style in their classrooms. Teaching strategies for a lesson may include one or more of the following styles:
    • chalk and talk
    • teaching for understanding
    • discussion
    • kinetic activities
    • investigations
    • discussions
    • study groups
    • workshops
    • co-operative learning
    • games and simulations
    • information searches to find their own material
    • informal learning: field trips to museums, amusement parks, industry
    • collecting information from the science news
    • and many, many more.
    The total list is probably only limited by the imagination of the teacher. Trainee teachers in particular need to be encouraged to try out new ideas and to follow them to their logical conclusion, submitting their work not only to the critical evaluation of others but also to the trainers who must learn to use the variety of teaching and learning styles too.
    Trainee teachers need to learn in their own way, to work autonomously and to learn to ask the right question. To begin with they will probably copy their mentor and other teachers, they may teach as they were taught, but eventually they will develop their own methods.
12. Coherence: Trainee teachers need to synthesise their knowledge gained from physics, pedogogics and didactics so that they can relate to their specific situation in their school in a coherent way..
13. Pastoral skills and knowledge: Teachers have to care about their pupils and their backgrounds otherwise learning does not take place. The level of pastoral care varies from country to country but most teachers would recognise the role they play as a ‘home room’ tutor. Interaction with parents, counsellors, careers guidance counsellors, social services and the medical profession may be part of the teacher’s role and the skills required for this extended role need to be taught.
14. Some saw that there were different levels in teacher training. First a base level in which students are taught their subject knowledge followed by a first level when they are taught some models of teaching physics and finally a second level when they are taught how to teach. Others saw the process in a more integrated way.

How do you teach all these cognitive and affective skills? A teacher who had them all would clearly be super human! The EUPEN investigation on teacher training is a valuable resource for the discussion of teaching skills.

F. Other aspects

Many other topics were mentioned and some of them need much more discussion than we could give them.

1. Screening applicants for teacher training and throughout their training is a particular problem for concurrent degrees where the assessment is sometimes made on academic grounds and not fitness for classroom practice.
2. A question was asked about who screens the trainers for suitability to train teachers. Who indeed and on what criteria?
3. Careers advice in schools and HEIs must be fitted to the student needs..
4. Many times we tried to discuss teaching packages for use internationally in a variety of training situations but we failed to get started on it because so much of the above discussion was a pre-requisite before we could begin. However in the written suggestions handed in the following recommendations were made:
   • examples of good practice for use with trainee teachers were made many times such as those developed by some of the Italian members of the group. One experience described the discussion following the teaching of a first lesson with a class of pupils in which there was a video camera. The trainee teacher’s need was to give a good lesson as though that was a simple matter of handing over information. However concerns of interaction with pupils and discipline issues were not noticed until the video was played back. Both the mentor and the class teacher needed to discuss at length with the trainee teacher so that s/he was able to interpret the problems for him/herself;
   • the establishment of a web site where work on such packages could be done across many countries and education cultures;
   • video examples of good teaching;
   • examples of establishing good learning environments
   Maybe we have just decided that this topic should be the main item at another conference.
5. There was a call for more systematic research on what is effective in teacher training beyond the reformation of physics courses. This research should measure the impact of the training on trainee teachers, understanding of what it means to be a teacher. This research should then lead to defining effectiveness in teacher training and its connection with teaching in school.
6. Behind much of the discussion was the decreasing interest of pupils in following physics courses in higher education and this in its turn leading to a shortage of physics teachers in some countries. Is this just a failure in teaching methods and a failure of the curriculum content to engage today’s pupils? Does anyone have any good practice which significantly reverses the trend? The consequence for many countries is that physics in the lower secondary school and increasingly in the upper secondary school will not be taught by physics specialists. The prestige of other professions such as medicine and law is a powerful attraction for able school leavers.
7. There is a drop-out from amongst those who begin teacher training in physics and those who complete, say, 5 years of classroom teaching. This can be as high as 40% of the entry. Thus the teaching profession as a whole is getting older. Drop-out rates vary by subject and by country. In many cases the student has not left the HEI but merely changed subjects in concurrent degrees and so dropping-out should not be seen as a catastrophe in all cases. Better mentoring may aid retention.
8. Recognition of good teaching should be acknowledged wherever it occurs with the setting up of prizes. Teachers who are able to transmit knowledge in an up to date and relevant way so as to motivate pupils with a love of physics should score highly on any criteria drawn up for the award of the prize.

The workshop group worked well together and we had many lively debates. We thank you all for making our job a privilege and a pleasure.

Brenda M Jennison
Gunnar Tibell
30. 09. 03

*ITT Initial Teacher Training
*HEI Higher Education Institution. A university, college or a teacher training institution at the tertiary level of education.
*Austria, Croatia, England, Faroe Islands, Greece, Italy, Norway, Romania, Sweden, USA were represented in the workshop.
*EPS European Physical Society