Cultural Content Knowledge (CCK) as a new curricular paradigm in physics teaching


  Igal Galili  
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

This talk will address the studies and developments during more than a decade in The Center of Science Teaching at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. A new curriculum framework suggests the replacement of the currently adopted disciplinary framework of teaching physics with discipline-cultural one. The difference is in introduction theory-based curriculum structured and hierarchically ordered in the triadic pattern: nucleus-body-periphery. The new teaching materials elicit the fundamentals of the considered theory (nucleus) and explicitly present them with reference to their alternatives in the process of their consolidation in physics discourse. I will argue for the advantage of this approach and its beneficial impact of causing cultural content knowledge (CCK) in students. I will only mention the feasible ways to introduce disciple-culture paradigm of physics education in actual teaching physics in school as tested experimentally with respect to optics and mechanics.