The role of physics departments in developing student teachers' expertise in teaching physics

In physics teacher education the challenge is to promote the development of the expertise needed in physics teachers. To that end, close collaboration between physicists and physics education professionals is needed. This, however, poses many challenges which are not easily met. We describe here some guidelines based on our own experience from a pilot course for pre-service physics teacher education. We discuss how physics departments can meet these challenges by designing a special course and working models, which takes into account the aspect of expected expertise in physics teachers. The positive results and feedback received are presented.

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