James de Winter from The Ogden Trust shares his expertise on how to provide challenge in your physics lessons, regardless of how experienced or confident you are in teaching physics.

The Ogden Trust supports everyone teaching physics, including those who find themselves teaching physics out of field at all levels. Our focus is on helping teachers provide a high-quality physics education for all. Our CPD programmes draw on research, evidence and experience to scaffold and build effective physics teaching practice, by supporting subject and pedagogical knowledge. We work with schools and teachers to improve teacher self-efficacy, confidence and enthusiasm for physics, enabling them to provide stretch and challenge for all students.

The research

The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) guidance report on Improving Secondary Physics informs our teacher support. The report made seven recommendations that could be implemented and actioned within the science classroom. 

Looking in more detail at two of these recommendations with a physics lens, we ask:

• What are some of the best ways to make practical work purposeful and effective?
• And how can you support students who arrive at your lessons with alternative conceptions in physics?

Here are some suggestions to help teachers adapt their lessons to challenge all students to reach their potential.

Purposeful practical work 

Practical work is a common feature of physics lessons but sometimes students do not fully engage, instead perceiving this aspect of their lesson as just following instructions. If teachers can be clear about the ‘why’ this can help them structure the practical, asking the right questions to make it effective in supporting students’ learning – making it ‘minds-on’ as well as ‘hands-on’.

Some of the most common reasons for using practical work are:

• To develop students’ competence in using equipment and carrying out laboratory procedures
• To encourage accurate observation and description of natural objects, materials, phenomena and events
• To develop students’ ability to design and implement a scientific approach to investigating an issue or solving a problem
• To enhance understanding of scientific ideas (theories, models, explanations)
• To develop students’ ability to present, analyse and interpret data.

It would be very difficult for any practical activity to cover all of these! I suggest that when planning and carrying out any practical lesson, ask yourself the following questions to maximise its effectiveness:

1. Why am I doing this? Decide on the learning objectives of the practical; this might be from the list above but there may be other reasons.
2. What does ‘effective’ look like? What do you want the students to do and talk about whilst they are doing the activity that will support your intended learning objectives?
3. How do I help make ‘effective’ happen? There is a ‘doing’ part where you think about the instructions, equipment and organisation of the room, but there is also a ‘thinking’ part and you will need to prepare in advance for the questions you will ask students.

It is in the questioning that you can effectively build opportunities to stretch and challenge students.

This is particularly important in physics where many ideas such as forces, electron flow in a wire and magnetic fields can never be directly observed by students. With good questions and examples, we can help students see beyond the single context demonstrated in the activity and appreciate the underlying ideas and where these occur elsewhere. For example, how the ideas in the resistance of a wire experiment can explain why super-fast electric charging cables are so thick and how the concept of specific heat capacity explains why some microwave meals take longer to heat up than others.

Alternative conceptions and diagnostic questioning

Physics is about observing, describing and explaining the world. Students come to our lessons having already developed some ideas about how the world works and unfortunately these don’t always match the accepted explanations. For example, many think that mass and weight are the same thing because most people use these words interchangeably, and that bigger magnets always have stronger magnetic fields because this matches their previous experiences.

Here are three questions to ask yourself before any lesson so you can be prepared to support all students and provide appropriate challenge.

1. What might they think? Identify common alternative conceptions that students may hold. One place to look is the IOP Spark website, which lists common misconceptions by physics topic.
2. How will I know what they think? To help you know where to start, consider what questions to ask to find out what students think. The Best Evidence Science Teaching (BEST) project from the University of York has produced a large collection of free diagnostic questions based on common alternate conceptions, available here.
3. What will I do about it? Consider what to include in the lesson to help move students from their view to the ‘correct’ one. This might include demonstrations, explanations, examples or additional questions. Many BEST questions include suggested follow-up activities.

Want to know more? 

Join me for our webinar in partnership with NACE on Wednesday 5 November, along with Jackie Flaherty, Head of Teaching and Learning at The Ogden Trust. We will also be joined by practising teachers who will share classroom experiences and lessons they have learnt for teaching physics most effectively.

About The Ogden Trust

The Ogden Trust provides a portfolio of programmes supporting schools to deliver high-quality physics education with a positive culture and environment for physics learning and access to purposeful enrichment opportunities showcasing pathways for young people.

• Improve retention of trainee and early career physics specialist teachers.
• Develop confidence and competence of teachers teaching physics out of field.
• Retain expertise of experienced teachers of physics within the profession.

Sign up to our newsletter to receive the latest news and opportunities direct to your inbox. And you can follow us on LinkedIn, BlueSky or Facebook.

About the author

Dr James de Winter is an adviser and consultant with The Ogden Trust. He is part of the Ogden CPD advisory panel and delivers on the Trust’s subject knowledge and early career programmes. James also leads the secondary physics PGCE course at the University of Cambridge.