ABSTRACT:We believe that physics education has to meet today's requirement for a qualitative approach to Quantum Mechanics (QM) worldview. An effective answer to the corresponding instructional problem might allow the basic ideas of QM to be accessed at an early stage of physics education. This paper presents part of a project that aims at introducing a sufficient, simple, and relevant teaching approach towards QM into in-/preservice teacher education, i.e., at providing teachers with the indispensable scientific knowledge and epistemological base needed for a reform of science education along the aforementioned line. The investigation of teacher -learners' (t-ls') initial knowledge indicated that their main misconceptions appear to be the result of their pre-/inuniversity traditional instruction, which causes the overlapping/mix-up of the conceptual frameworks of Classical Physics (CP) and QM. Assuming that these misconceptions form by nature epistemological obstacles to the acquisition of QM knowledge, the educational strategy proposed here aims at leading t-ls to form a conceptual structure that includes CP and QM as two totally independent conceptual systems. Accepting, furthermore, that the complete distinction of these systems demands a radical reconstruction of t-ls' initial knowledge, we present here an instructional model that bases the required reconstruction on the juxtaposition of two models that constitute the signal point of twentieth century's "paradigm shift": (a) Bohr's semiclassical atom model, and (b) the model of the atom accepted by modern physics theory.

This article presents an epistemological approach to quantum mechanics teaching. The 20th century is characterized by the prevalence of a radically new scientific viewpoint for physical phenomena, a new 'paradigm' in physics, according to Kuhn's epistemological perception. In particular, the development of quantum mechanics (QM) shapes a new worldview as it introduces basic assumptions and images that provide a totally new way of thinking about the world.

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Introducing Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (NST) topics into school science curricula is considered useful for an in-depth understanding of the content, processes and nature of science and technology, and also for negotiating the social aspects of science. This study examines (a) the development of an inquiry-based Teaching–Learning Sequence (TLS) on NST topics, which incorporates socio-scientific issues and out-of-school learning environments and (b) the dissemination of the developed TLS through the training of further teachers. In both cases, a participatory design, in particular Communities of Learners (CoLs), was established, consisting of teachers, science researchers, science education researchers and science museum experts. As a theoretical framework for the TLS development, the Model of Educational Reconstruction is used. The qualitative analysis of the obtained data highlights that teachers’ interactions with colleagues in the CoL on issues regarding the educational reconstruction of the different aspects of the TLS impact the process of its development. Regarding the dissemination of the TLS, the findings indicate that teachers modified several elements of the TLS and particularly the included activities, influenced by their mentors’ prior experience and their own rich contextual knowledge. Finally, guidelines for the development and dissemination of a TLS are discussed.

A teaching and learning sequence aimed at introducing upper secondary school students to the interplay between chance and determinism in nonlinear systems is presented. Three experiments concerning nonlinear systems (deterministic chaos, self-organization and fractals) and one experiment concerning linear systems are introduced. Thirty upper secondary students' capabilities and difficulties in understanding the scientific point of view were investigated, using a teaching experiment design. The results show that most students were capable of sound explanations concerning the interplay of chance and determinism in nonlinear systems.

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