Opening speech by Mr. Leung Shiu-keung, Principal Curriculum Development Officier, Education Department.

Opening speech by Professor Lau Oi-wah, Dean, Faculty of Science, CUHK.

Professor Kenneth Young shared his opinions about the contextual approach of teaching.

Teachers were very interested in Professor Young's talk.

The Briefing Sessions of Physics World took place smoothly on the 20th and 21st of October. Over three hundred teachers enthusiastically responded and participated in the two seminars. Apart from introducing the Physics World, the seminars also featured several demonstrations and talks presented by a few lecturers from the Chinese University; they shared their teaching experiences with their secondary counterparts.

The briefing sessions began with the welcoming addresses of Dean of the Faculty of Science at the Chinese University, Professor Lau Oi-wah, Principal Curriculum Development Officer Leung Shiu-keung and Senior Curriculum Development Officer Lau Yuen-tang of the Education Department. The session comprised four parts: a talk on contextual approach of teaching given by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the Chinese University, Professor Kenneth Young; an introduction to Physics World presented by Dr. Tong Shiu-sing and Dr. Wong Wing-hung; an introduction to the new method of measuring the speed of sound presented by Professor Mak Se-yuen from the Faculty of Education; and a talk on magnetic levitation given by Professor Wong Hong-kuen. The content will be briefly introduced below.

Since the beginning of 2003, contextual approach of teaching would be incorporated into the form four physics syllabus. What exactly is contextual approach of teaching? How can it be put into practice? What are the pros and cons? Professor Young has shared his invaluable opinion in the seminar. Contextual approach of teaching is a teaching method that avails the contexts that students are familiar with, so that it would be easier for them to understand abstract concepts. Professor Young emphasized that contextual approach of teaching is only a tool, not a goal; after students grasped the physical concepts, the contexts should be left behind. This is because the purpose of education is to enable students to apply the knowledge they learned to different contexts. On the other hand, the contexts used should be familiar to the students. Every student has encountered different contexts; teachers should be adaptive and choose appropriate materials. They should not be constrained by certain contexts in the syllabus, or else the meaning of this teaching method would be lost.

After a preparation that lasted over half a year, the Physics World is finally launched. In the briefing sessions, Dr. Tong and Dr. Wong have introduced the application procedure to Physics World and various types of teaching resources, which include physics video clips and graphics, PowerPoint notes and interactive exercises. The two speakers especially emphasized that the success of Physics World rely heavily on the support of all teachers, and teachers are encouraged to take part in discussions and to share teaching resources.

Measurement of the speed of sound in solid was not adopted into the curriculum of secondary schools because of its serious error. However, the physics concept involved is simple and practical (such as to examine the length of piles), and it is a desirable material for experiments. Dr Mak Se-yuen has improved the circuit of the experimental apparatus with the use of a new pottery sensor, so that the experimental error is largely reduced. Dr. Mak has demonstrated the experiment and distributed a detector to every teacher. Teachers can thus try it out themselves!

The talk on magnetic levitation given by Professor Wong Hong-kuen is a fabulous demonstration of multimedia teaching. He has explained to us the mechanism of magnetic levitation, its academic and real life applications, and many other interesting tricks. One would not forget the levitated frog in the demonstration. From interesting demonstrations to practical applications (e.g. levitated train), Dr. Wong has shown to us the attraction of physics.

After the meetings, many teachers have expressed their precious opinions towards Physics World. We will do our best. We would like to thank sincerely all the speakers for their help, as well as all the teachers for their participation and support. See you in Physics World.