Frank Fiedler

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Teaching

Teaching: Physics Didactics and Teacher Education (and what I find important about it)

I teach courses on experimental physics and physics didactics for all physics degree programs at Mainz University, and I develop and implement novel teaching concepts.

Students and I develop and test high-school physics lessons and courses for the high-school student laboratory "NaT-Lab Physik" at Mainz University.

The nomination for the Rhineland-Palatinate State Teaching Awards ("Landeslehrpreise") in 2020 and 2024 by the Department for Physics, Mathematics, and Computer Science of Mainz University is a great honor to me.

To me, teaching physics well implies

  • to describe nature with simple, clear concepts and to recognize connections,
  • to convey this understanding of physics, and
  • to live up to the principles of good teaching I teach when teaching myself.

My courses should be worth the participants' time. Especially in teacher training, they should be a (positive) example for the participants' future teaching:

  • In terms of content, they should explain the concepts correctly and clearly at a suitable level.
  • In terms of methodology, it is important to me (in lab courses and lectures alike) to respond to different individual needs and at the same time to promote cooperation and a positive group feeling among the students.
  • As a human being, I want to foster an appreciative and thus pleasant working and learning atmosphere.
My colleagues in the Physics and School working group and I work together to develop the systematic concept for the physics didactics program at Mainz University.

I hold the following courses regularly and/or have been significantly involved in their development and implementation:

Physics Teachers' Laboratory (on experiments for teaching at middle- and high-school level):
  • The objective of the Physics Teachers' Laboratory is to work out how physics can be taught in school lessons with the help of experiments. These lab courses are a pivotal element of the curriculum in physics education at Mainz University. I am responsible for the concept and implementation of the Physics Teachers' Laboratory on both middle and high-school physics.
Teaching and Learning Laboratory (on student experiments in physics instruction at school):
  • In the Teaching and Learning Laboratory, students work out the fundamentals of student classroom experiments based on their experience from the Physics Teachers' Laboratory. I developed the concept for this course, successfully applied for funds for it as an innovative teaching project from the Gutenberg Teaching Council, and then implemented and taught the course. As a result, the Teaching and Learning Laboratory became a permanent part of the curriculum of physics teacher training at Mainz University. It has been taught by colleagues from the Physics and School working group in recent years.
Lecture course "Structure of Matter" ("Experimental Physics 4"):
  • The lecture course on Structure of Matter deals with the basics of particle, nuclear, molecular, solid state physics, and cosmology. For the science and education degree programs I have taught this course several times in cooperation with colleagues, and I supervised a master's thesis in which a novel didactic concept for this course was developed, implemented and evaluated.
Lecture course "Fundamental Concepts and Applications of Physics":
  • At the end of the physics education degree program, this course gives an overview of physics from the perspective of experimental and theoretical physics and links the various sub-areas based on the fundamental concepts. I worked out the experimental physics part and regularly teach this course together with a colleague from theoretical physics.
Combined lecture and lab course "Just Physics" on topics of physics in middle school:

In the natural sciences, the following teaching cycle supports learning success:

  • introduction of the basic concepts
  • directly afterwards free experimentation on concrete questions
  • concluded by linking of the experimental results with the basic concepts

When studying in Germany, however, lecture courses on introductory experimental physics and introductory lab courses do not usually take place in the same semester, and an explicit link between the two is hardly possible in practice. However, physics education students in particular should experience this teaching cycle at the university themselves, because as teachers they will draw on their own experiences when designing their lessons. The situation is different e.g. at Swedish universities, since courses there typically integrate the lecture and practical elements.

The consequences are exacerbated when the topics that are relevant for middle-school education are not discussed in sufficient detail in the introductory lectures on experimental physics. Topics and associated concepts that often cause difficulties for students include: Mechanics (forces), thermodynamics (ideal gases), electrics (potential and current, simple circuits), ray optics (light propagation in space and at interfaces, optical images) and colors (intensity distribution, scattering, and human perception).

On these topics, I am developing a combined lecture and lab course "Just Physics". I plan for...

  • the first lecture course in the winter semester 2023/24
  • the first combined course with associated practical experiments in the summer semester 2024
  • a comparison with teaching in Sweden and the creation of the final version based on the experiences from Mainz and Sweden in the winter semester 2024/25
Thesis topics in this context:

  • Development and test of practical experiments for the course (several Master of Education theses, summer semester 2023)
  • Development of studies on the physics understanding and motivation before and after the lecture and analysis of the results (two Bachelor of Education theses, winter semester 2023/24)
Lectures on particle physics in the physics education curriculum:

The lectures "Experimental Physics 4" and "Interdisciplinary Concepts and Applications of Physics" are to be revised. For particle physics, it makes sense to link the following content:

  • elementary particles and charges (experimental physics)
  • principle of gauge invariance and electromagnetic interaction (theory)
  • fundamental interactions and their characteristics (experimental physics)
  • dynamics in special relativity (theory)
  • measurement of particles (laboratory work)
  • reconstruction of particle decays in data from collider experiments (practical work)
  • participation in a particle physics master class with high-school students (practical work)

Here, too, it makes sense to take into account experience from other universities, e.g. in Sweden, where lectures and practical work on particle physics represent a joint course.

Thesis topics in this context:

  • Development and test of a master class for high-school students on the XENON experiment (several Master of Education theses, see the description on the Outreach page)
Physics as a language:

Even beyond mathematization, physics can be compared with a foreign language. Technical terms in physics represent a very limited vocabulary to be used within strict rules that deliberately leave little choice when it comes to wording. I am interested to find out if and how concepts of foreign language didactics can be transferred to physics instruction at the university level and possibly also at school. In contrast to language immersion, the goal here is the selection of a minimal physics vocabulary with rules for its use in order to test how a topic from middle-school physics can be taught in the lecture "Just Physics" using methods of foreign-language didactics.

Thesis topics in this context:

  • Selection of a vocabulary with rules for its use and a teaching unit on a topic of middle-school physics and test of this unit as part of the lecture "Just Physics" (Bachelor or Master of Education thesis for a student with a foreign language as a subject)
School lessons on climate physics:

It is my goal to create teaching units on climate physics that allow to repeatedly teach this topic from 5th grade onwards. The individual units should build on one another, be easily recognizable, take up topics from physics or natural sciences lessons in the context of "climate", and offer interdisciplinary connections.

Thesis topics in this context:

  • Creation, test, and subjective evaluation of a teaching unit "The Colors of Our Climate" for the first year of physics instruction at middle school (one or two Master of Education theses, see the description on the Climate page)
Early study program for high-school students:
  • Some high-school students show a level of interest in physics that goes far beyond the scope of high-school education even taking performance differentiation into account. For these students I organize the early study program in physics, which offers them an opportunity to flexibly participate in regular university courses: with an online option, optionally including exams, and starting each lecture term in March or September.
Mentoring program for first-year students:
Student advisor: