مورد مطالعه از آموزش الکترونیکی موفق: دوره از راه دور مبتنی بر وب در فیزیک پزشکی برگزار شده برای معلمان مدارس سطح دبیرستان

Learning activities and course design in the new context of e-learning, such as in web-based courses involves a change both for teachers and students. The paper discusses factors important for e-learning to be successful. The development of an online course in medical physics and technology for high school teachers of physics, details of the course, and experience gained in connection with it are described. The course syllabus includes basics of radiation physics, imaging techniques using ionizing or non-ionizing radiation, and external and internal radiation therapy. The course has a highly didactic approach. The final task is for participants to design a course of their own centered on some topic of medical physics on the basis of the knowledge they have acquired. The aim of the course is to help the teachers integrate medical physics into their own teaching. This is seen as enhancing the interest of high school students in later studying physics, medical physics or some other branch of science at the university level, and as increasing the knowledge that they and people generally have of science. It is suggested that the basic approach taken can also have applicability to the training of medical, nursing or engineering students, and be used for continuing professional development in various areas.

This article concerns an online course in medical physics that upper secondary school teachers in Sweden can take and the ideas behind it. The major aim of the course is to provide teachers the knowledge and skills required for teaching physics in what for most of them is a new context, that of medical radiation physics and its applications. Since even many students of higher education do not remember much of the science they had in school, there is a common lack of concern for science and of understanding of it on the part of many adults. This is a genuine problem at a time when science is having an increasing impact on our daily lives, and when society is more in need of scientists than ever before. Physics is often considered a difficult and highly abstract subject and interest in it appears to have been on decline for some time [1] and [2]. There is also a clear gender difference in the degree of interest students show in physics and how well acquainted they are with questions concerning it [3]. It is important that teachers endeavor to find means of counteracting this [4]. Many initiatives have been taken to enhance interest in physics and in science generally. An example is that of Physics on Stage, 1 a programme for European science teachers initiated by CERN, ESA and ESO in 1999 in response to the Call for Proposals for the European Science and Technology Week in the year 2000, which the European Commission sponsored. A current project announced by The International Union of Pure and Applied Physics is the World Year of Physics 2005, 2 a global celebration of physics and its importance in our everyday lives. Alongside these international ventures, there are a variety of domestic and local initiatives aimed at encouraging the study of physics. An approach often employed has been to show how applicable physics is to real-life problems and problem solving [1], [4], [5] and [6]. A physical phenomenon that can be used to elucidate this is that of radiation, with the practical applications it has in the areas of medicine and healthcare, e.g. diagnostic imaging and cancer therapy [7]. Medical imaging involving the use of ionizing or non-ionizing radiation can serve as a point of departure, for example, in providing students access to large segments of contemporary physics [6]. For the interest of young persons in physics and engineering to be enhanced, it is important that there be high school teachers with the motivation and knowledge for teaching contemporary physics in a manner that is exciting and stimulating. The National Agency for Education in Sweden has made efforts to encourage interest in science in the schools by letting pupils study themes and topics not offered in the normal school curriculum. To give students the encouragement and support they need in this respect, it is important to provide teachers appropriate training, not only in teaching methods but also in specific school subjects not covered in the ordinary education and training of teachers, an approach termed continuing professional development, CPD.

In e-learning it is important that the teacher move from a teaching to a learning perspective. In the course described, the teacher prepares and helps create learning situations for the students and situations in which they can interact. For any e-learning course to be successful, a number of support mechanisms need to be developed and function properly. Success is not automatic. It is thought, however, that the paradigms discussed can suggest to teachers who are endeavouring to create their own online courses how these might best be designed and how they can best take account of the needs of the target group. In a more specific sense, the paper considers in some detail an e-learning course aimed at providing upper secondary school teachers of physics information, insights, skills and experience in dealing with topics in medical physics in their teaching, doing so in a way encouraging and inspiring many high school students to go on later with studies in the area of science and possibly even of medical engineering and physics, and also contributing in at least some small way to making adults in general more conversant with science and with various medical applications of physics. The basic approach described is also not limited to upper secondary school teachers of physics, but could in a broad sense be applied to medical and nursing training generally and to continuing professional development of persons in a variety of fields.