The Big Ideas in Physics and How to Teach Them provides all of the knowledge and skills you need to teach physics effectively at secondary level. Each chapter provides the historical narrative behind a Big Idea, explaining its significance, the key figures behind it, and its place in scientific history. Accompanied by detailed ready-to-use lesson plans and classroom activities, the book expertly fuses the 'what to teach' and the 'how to teach it', creating an invaluable resource which contains not only a thorough explanation of physics, but also the applied pedagogy to ensure its effective translation to students in the classroom.
Including a wide range of teaching strategies, archetypal assessment questions and model answers, the book tackles misconceptions and offers succinct and simple explanations of complex topics. Each of the five big ideas in physics are covered in detail:
- electricity
- forces
- energy
- particles
- the universe.
Aimed at new and trainee physics teachers, particularly non-specialists, this book provides the knowledge and skills you need to teach physics successfully at secondary level, and will inject new life into your physics teaching.
"The book is brilliant. I hope all physics teacher trainers and trainees, as well as established teachers, use this critically important work to guide their teaching." - John Sweller, Emeritus Professor at the School of Education, The University of New South Wales, Australia
"This book is both fascinating and highly practical, with a blend of narrative and examples, of words, pictures and numbers, and of subject knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. It is not just a useful guide to teaching physics, but an exemplar of how to teach any complex concept." - Daisy Christodoulou, Director of Education, No More Marking, UK
"There is a lot of good advice in this book, not just on how to do something and what to look out for but also on why it is important. The recommendations for further reading at the end of each chapter are also good." - Miriam Chaplin, School Science Review
