Asia-Pacific Forum on Science Learning and Teaching, Volume 10, Issue 1, Article 1 (June, 2009) Samson Madera NASHON & David ANDERSON & Wendy S. NIELSEN An instructional challenge through problem solving for physics teacher candidates Previous Contents Next

Conclusion

The majority of teacher candidates used very advanced calculus to generate a solution to the assigned problem for the study reported here. These solutions were certainly not within the realm of grade 11 and 12 students' grasp, even though our teacher candidates were asked to consider grade-appropriate solution paths. Many of the strategies embodied mathematics noise (Johnstone & Wham, 1982) and further, most of the strategies could lead to cognitive overload for the majority of grade 11 and 12 students. The findings discussed in this paper point to a need to pay attention to pedagogy as well as content necessary to instruct high school physics. The framing of this investigation resulted in consequences for modeling group learning and pedagogy, and further, the need to explicate teacher candidates' pedagogical content knowledge. This later point should be the apex of the physics methods courses in teacher education programs.