Research-Based MEDS Model to Build Prospective Primary Teachers Professional Competence in Physics Education

Basic science education and primary teacher education are two interconnected problems. They have been widely studied in the research literature and targeted by several European projects, under the pressure of the need to improve the scientific culture of citizens and motivate young people for scientific studies and overcoming gender barriers. The theoretical model of Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) has been a referent for that perspective of teachers’ professional competence development, based on the integration of pedagogical and subject matter knowledge. The challenge is those teacher education able to offer them the competence to create learning environment in school and to educate children for critical thinking in active learning. Prospective Primary Teacher (PPT), have a lack of basic scientific competence and the main approach they know is the transmissive one, that they often taken as a model. Therefore way to meet the challenge for scientific education demands a lot of research. PPT education curricula is very diversified in different countries. The PPT education program started in Italy only in 2000s, in a contest not prepared to take on that challenge, with the advantage that the program is organized taking into account a PCK perspective and subject matter education relevance. This produced a differentiated implementation. In this paper I aim presenting the details of the MEDS model consolidated after over 20 years of research based experimentation carried out at the University of Udine in the course of Physics Education (PE) and Laboratory of Physics Education (LPE) held in the third year of the five-year degree of PPT.