School-University Collaboration and Teachers’ Professional Development

Teachers’ professional development is central to Physics Education Research (PER). Based on a history of collaborative research between schools and universities developed within the community of the Italian Scientific Degrees Plan (PLS) in cooperation with the PER community, research questions relevant to envisioning future perspectives are identified in teachers’ needs, strategies and methods to adopt, and challenges teachers face, where they can take on an active role. Moving from these questions, the World Conference on Physics Education community has been engaged in an open workshop through a participatory preparation process, to share and reflect on common grounds. Here, relevant and significant dimensions to guide future reflections have been identified in the use of labs and technologies, development of mentoring and community of practices along with conceptual paths, teachers’ education on interdisciplinary contents, and conceptual paths in classical and modern physics. We report on this community reflection, providing perspectives in this topical area of PER.