Last Forum of HOPE network
The University of Bucharest in partnership with Constanta Maritime University organized the last forum of HOPE network in Constanța, on the Black Sea coast. More than 100 participants attended the event that was held on the maritime base of the university under a very pleasant weather.
The participants at the Nautic base of Maritime Constanta University
Roxanna Zus and Stephan Antohe, Vice Dean of the Faculty of Physics at the University of Bucharest welcomed the last forum of HOPE, celebrating the memory of our dear colleague Laura Tugulea. During three days, the participants have discussed and shared their experiences on teacher education and on the three other priorities of HOPE network : Inspiring the young, Entrepreneurship skills and global aspects in physics education.
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Keynote speaker
 Laurence Viennot from the University of Denis Diderot, France, presented a talk on critical reasoning that is an important component of teacher formation. She gave evidence on the difficulties for teachers to develop their critical reasoning. She focused on the links existing between student teachers’ critical attitude and their conceptual understanding by presenting few exemples. She proposed then some suggestions to foster teachers’ critical attitude and their conceptual understanding by developing activities focusing on text analysis, exercices solving, understanding teaching rituals.
The presentation and the abstract can be found here.
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Poster session
About 30 posters were presented during the poster session organized on the nautic base. Participants have taken the opportunity to exchange, to discuss, to discover initiatives for improving the training of teachers, for inspiring the young, for developping soft skills or for experiencing alternative teaching methods.
All the poster contributions are available on HOPE website here.
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Round table : Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats analysis of Higher Education in Physics within a European context in the light of the activities and results of HOPE
The last round table of HOPE proposed by Ivan Ruddock has given speakers the floor representing each working group. The panel was composed of :
Olivia Levrini, University of Bologna, Italy
Gareth Jones, Imperial College London, United Kingdom
Sune Pettersson, Umeå University, Sweden
Maria José de Almeida, University of Coimbra, Portugal
Alexis Prel, Pierre and Marie Curie University, France
Pratibha Jolly, University of Delhi, India
Round table panel
The panel composition was drawn from the four Work Groups of HOPE together with input from a student with experience of mobility and one of the invited speakers to provide an independent and international view. Experiences of the panel put a light on the integration of the four working groups of HOPE.
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HOPE recommendations
The forum organized in Constanta was the last forum of the project HOPE : Horizons in Physics Education. Each working group presented an overview of the work achieved during the three years of duration of the project and proposed recommendations to the community.
Among the recommendations that can improve the attraction of physics studies, the first year questionnaire combined with the interviews carried on on a large scale suggests that Inviting school parties to visit universities is better than getting staff to visit schools. Physics departments should then focus their energy in such direction.
Regarding the new competences fostering innovation and entrepreneurship, the survey carried out at the institutional level revealed that Physics departments should investigate if and how "soft" skills are acquired inside their physics curricula.
N. Witkowski presenting the conclusions of HOPE
From the work achieved with HOPE network, it appears that identical recommendations are emerging from different working group results resulting in possible an integration of the four topics studied during the project.
A more complete overview on HOPE recommendations and integrations will be published in the next newsletter of HOPE.
The slides of the presentations for the different working groups are available here.
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Keynote speaker
 Hans Fischer, from University Duidburg / Essen, Germany introduced the topic on Teacher Education by a talk entitled "Professional knowledge of science teachers and consequences for teacher education".
He explained to the participants of the forum, concepts of professional knowledge and their consequences for the quality of teaching and learning physics in the classroom and at the university.
He presented a project (ProwiN project) that was an attempt to find out if the domain‐specific professional knowledge of physics teachers – measured by intensively validated test instruments, really matters for effective teaching.
Conclusions on pedagogical content knowledge and content knowledge were presented in the perspective of teacher education, at university level and EU level. According to his finding, teacher education must become a separate structure such as school of education, center of teacher education...More cooperation between teacher educators and researchers is highly desirable at national and EU scale. A further development of Eu standards of teacher education is of great importance to improve the quality and the efficiency of the teaching.
The presentation and the abstract can be found here.
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Keynote speaker
 Pratibha Jolly, Principal of Miranda House, the premiere college for women at University of Delhi, has addressed Global Challenges in Physics Education and she explained how the development of low cost lab courses in India at the high school or university level can help the students in the understanding of fundamental concepts .
The presentation and the abstract can be found here.
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Contributed papers from partners.
 Selected contributed papers from Ovidiu Florin Căltun, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi, Romania Víctor López (picture), Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain, Joan Borg Marks, University of Malta, Malta, Philip Mörke, University of Konstanz, Germany, illustrated the dynamism of HOPE partners in developping initiatives for the training of physics teachers whereas Edouard Kierlik (picture below), Pierre and Marie Curie University, France presented the case study of the faculty of physics in the implementation of problem-soving on a large scale.
 Abstract and slides of the presentations are available on HOPE website here.
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Round table : Teacher needs in the different contexts
To enrich the discussions on teacher education, a round table was organized involving contributors from various contexts. Marisa Michelini invited the round table contributors to give their point of view on "what are the needs of the physics teachers?" . The panel was composed of :
Marie-Blanche Mauhourat, General Inspector, Ministry of Education, France
Yaron Lehavi, Weitzman Institute of Science, Israel
Silvano Sgrignoli, Italian Association for Physics Teaching, Bergamo, Italy
Ion Băraru, Coach for professional development and Teacher, Colegiul National “Mircea cel Bătrân”, Costanţa, Romania
Andreea Popescu-Cruglic, Stefan Ghinescu, Students- prospective teachers, University of Bucharest, Romania
Round table panel
The two master students from the University of Bucharest have then expressed their wish in term of intial training and in service training, pointing for instance a need in psychology courses to better understand how to keep the pupils interested or a training to alternative teaching methods.
Slides and reports on the round table can be found here.
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