In physics education, many researchers have studied the difficulties that teachers face in physics teaching. In particular, to understand the difficulties that teachers face during classes, researchers have tried to define terms such as ‘dilemma’ ...
In physics education, many researchers have studied the difficulties that teachers face in physics teaching. In particular, to understand the difficulties that teachers face during classes, researchers have tried to define terms such as ‘dilemma’ or ‘inconsistency situations’, and to address teachers’ practical difficulties. However, it is difficult to find studies that explore the difficulties teachers face in their classes from the points of view of the nature of scientific theories or the characteristics of the curriculum.
Therefore, in this study, we tried to address the teaching difficulties experienced by a teacher while teaching ‘collision,’ ‘electric field,’ and ‘refraction of light’ in high school physics classes, based on the nature of scientific theories and the characteristics of the curriculum. To this end, we conceptualized the gaps in the subject content that the teacher became aware of through students’ questions as ‘blind spots in physics classes’. In addition, we conducted action research in order to understand the process in which the teacher discovered and understood these blind spots in his own teaching. The results of this study are as follows.
First, the process by which a teacher discovered and understood blind spots in physics classes involved recognizing dissatisfaction with his own teaching, reflecting critically on his classes, and exploring subject content to improve them. Understanding the blind spots required lots of concern such as exploring the content of students’ questions, reflecting on classroom situation, investigating gaps in the subject content, and engaging in comprehensive reflection on the process of action and reflection.
Second, there were lots of reasons for the blind spots in the teacher’s physics classes, as follows.
(1) The physics theories that explain collision phenomena through models could not explicitly explain the collision process. Additionally, the teacher had an insufficient understanding of these aspects.
(2) The characteristics of the curriculum, such as optimization of learning volume, limited class hours, reflecting students’ interests and recent scientific and technological achievements, resulted in limited explanations of the background and central ideas of the electric field concept in the 2009 and 2015 revised physics textbooks. Additionally, the teacher had an insufficient understanding of these aspects.
(3) The characteristics of the spiral curriculum resulted in variations in the depth and breadth of subject content at different educational levels. In other words, the lower the educational level, the more gaps there are in the subject content. Therefore, when applying a spiral curriculum, it is essential to consider students’ understanding, appropriate learning volume, and class hours relevantly. However, the results of this study revealed that the 2015 revised curriculum and textbooks have weak logical hierarchy and connections between related concepts in the content of light refraction. Additionally, the teacher’s insufficient understanding of these aspects led to the blind spots.
Through this study, it was found that blind spots in physics classes occur in deep connection with the components of physics classes, such as teachers, students, physics, and the curriculum.
Based on these findings, we discussed the educational significance of blind spots: blind spots are one of the causes of teaching difficulties and a chance to improve physics teaching. Additionally, we discussed the implications for curriculum and textbook development.