Abstract:

The School of Physics of the Faculty of Sciences at the Industrial University of Santander-UIS started in 2015 a project aimed at encouraging students to achieve research skills. Students enrolled in the programs of the Faculties of Sciences, Physical-mechanical Engineering and Physical chemical Engineering, which within their curriculum have established the subjects of Physics I, Physics II and Physics III, as well as undergraduate students in Physics who take Mechanics, Electromagnetism, Mechanics II, Waves and Particles, and Modern and Optical Physics classes are enrolled in the project.

This proposal of improvement comes from the idea of the laboratory as an experimentation space, which makes sense in the framework of a research project. This idea materialized in a didactic form through the integration of the active learning strategies Just in Time Teaching (JiTT) and Mediated Learning (ML). The proposed didactic strategy involves a learning sequence that begins with the familiarization of the research project material followed by assessment through a Laboratory Preparation Questionnaire. After the Laboratory session is carried on the students write down a report with their findings and results. The activity ends with the teacher’s evaluation and feedback of the report.

The project was implemented in 2015 with a group of 5 teachers and 560 students, but there was a disparity in the application of the established guidelines of the didactic strategy, both little motivation and broad criticism of the process from the involved teachers. To overcome these disadvantages, in 2016 the School of Trainers was organized, which focuses on providing pedagogical, didactic and practical techniques to the teachers who will implement the improvement proposal to facilitate their work developing the subjects involved, aiming to strengthen the School of Physics processes and to contribute to the academic improvement of the students who are part of them.

The School of Trainers organizes its process based on the same didactic strategy that involves reading material support, session preparation questions, skills development through active and mediated learning strategies, perception of the process by the teachers and students and feedback of the findings obtained in the perception to the collective

This article describes the implementation process of the School of Trainers for the teachers of Physics Laboratory 1, 2 and 3, developed during the first and second semester of 2016, in which 17 teachers have been trained. It identifies important aspects for the acceptance of the didactic strategy by the teachers, such as:
1) taking into account previous experiences in teaching physics laboratories and highlighting the aspects included in the pedagogical proposal to facilitate the learning of the students,
2) provide constant feedback for the use of the linked Moodle course, in order for them to overcome the technical difficulties using the technology,
3) reaching agreements with the teachers on how to evaluate and to create the tools to assess such evaluation,
4) generating participatory dynamics for the construction and revision of the didactic material that supports learning in laboratories.

Keywords:

Training of trainers, active learning, JiTT, mediated learning, physics laboratory.