Half-time seminar with PhD student Sebastian Kilde Westberg titled "On the role of developing and working with models in physics education".
When learning physics in school, students learn about the nature of the world through experimental and theoretical studies. In both areas, models play a central role, as it is by developing, testing, and revising models, physicists generate theories about the world. As such, students need to develop an understanding of the use of models and how experts understand and use them. This includes developing the skill of forming and revising models based on what is taught in schools and students' experiences of the world around them. In my thesis work, I study how students can use models and representations by interacting with different idealised models to make sense of abstract phenomena in the areas of electric fields and quantum physics. With a theoretical basis of embodied cognition and the variation theory of learning, my work specifically explores how connecting what is to be taught with previous experiences, both in physics and more generally about the world, can inform the design of teaching activities.