Physics education or physics teaching refers to the education methods currently used to teach physics. The occupation is called physics educator or physics teacher. Physics education research refers to an area of pedagogical research that seeks to improve those methods. Historically, physics has been taught at the high school and college level primarily by the lecture method together with laboratory exercises aimed at verifying concepts taught in the lectures. These concepts are better understood when lectures are accompanied with demonstration, hand-on experiments, and questions that require students to ponder what will happen in an experiment and why. Students who participate in active learning for example with hands-on experiments learn through self-discovery. By trial and error they learn to change their preconceptions about phenomena in physics and discover the underlying concepts. Physics education is part of the broader area of science education.
Ancient Greece
Aristotle wrote what is considered now as the first textbook of physics. Aristotle's ideas were taught unchanged until the Late Middle Ages, when scientists started making discoveries that didn't fit them. For example, Copernicus' discovery contradicted Aristotle's idea of an Earth-centric universe. Aristotle's ideas about motion weren't displaced until the end of the 17th century, when Newton published his ideas.
Today's physics students often think of physics concepts in Aristotelian terms, despite being taught only Newtonian concepts.
Hong Kong
High schools
In Hong Kong, physics is a subject for public examination. Local students in Form 6 take the public exam of Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education (HKDSE).
Compare to the other syllabus include GCSE, GCE etc. which learn wider and boarder of different topics, the Hong Kong syllabus is learning more deeply and more challenges with calculations. Topics are narrow down to a smaller amount compared to the A-level due to the insufficient teaching hours at secondary schools in Hong Kong, which include temperature, heat, internal energy, change of state, gases, position, motion, force, projectile motion, work, energy, power, momentum, uniform circular motion, gravitation, wave, light, sound, electrostatics, circuits, electromagnetism, radiation, radioactivity, atomic model, nuclear energy, universe, astronomy, stars, Rutherford model, photoelectric effect, Bohr model, particles, nanoscopic scale, building, transportation, renewable energy sources, eye, ear, non-ionizing radiation and ionizing radiation etc.
Some schools only allow students choose physics as elective subject since Form 4, some schools provide physics compulsory curriculum in Form 3 and then allow students to choose in Form 4, and some other schools allow students choose physics as elective subject since Form 3. Also, most schools use English language as the medium of instruction for physics, whereas a few of the schools use Chinese language as the medium of instruction for physics.
Other than having lectures in classrooms or laboratories, schools in Hong Kong organise outside-school activities to motivate students learning Physics.
Universities
Pure Physics major programmes are provided in the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and University of Hong Kong (HKU). Topics include engineering physics, mechanics, thermodynamics, fluids, wave, optics, modern physics, laboratory, heat, electromagnetism, quantitative methods, computational physics, astronomy, astrophysics, classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, quantum information, statistical physics, theoretical physics, computer simulation, soft matter, practical electronics, contemporary physics, instrumentation, statistical mechanics, solid state physics, meteorology, nanoscience, optical physics, theory of relativity and particle physics etc.
There are different approaches of delivering physics lectures in different universities in Hong Kong. In CUHK, most relevant knowledge including quantitative methods and computer simulation are learnt in the Department of Physics, which may let the students learn deeper into the concept that applied to the physics problems, whereas in HKUST, quantitative methods and computer simulation are learnt by students in the courses delivered by Department of Mathematics and Department of Computer Science respectively which allow the students to learn boarder with knowledge of different aspects.