Slajd 1

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Teaching "by Means of Physics" as an Important
Tool in the Creation of a European Higher
Education Area
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Aims of the pronouncement

• This presentation will enable you to get to know
•   The origin of the European Higher Education
  Area (EHEA) and its tasks.
•  The strategy of development of academical
  education in Poland.
•   The importance of physics as the queen of
  natural sciences in such a strategy.
•     The social megatrends of our present world.
•   The idea of the project concerning the process
  of teaching "via physics" according to the spirit
  of new educational tasks.
•  

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The Bologna Declaration
On June 19th, 1999 the Ministers of Academical
Education representing 29 countries signed a
joint declaration called the Declaration of
Bologna. It was also determined there that up to
2010 the following aims must be achieved

• A system of readable and comparative
  professional designations and scientific titles
  ought to be adopted, among others by implementing
  a supplement to the diploma, stating the
  professional qualifications of the graduates in
  order to improve their possibility of being
  employed and to ensure the compativity of the
  European system of academical education all over
  the world.

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  The introduction of a
two-grade system of studies, based on two
educational cycles. The first one secures the
professional graduation as an engineer or
licentiate after at least three years of studies.
This degree should be acknowledged on the
European labour market as an adequate level of
competence. The other cycle leads to graduation
as M.A. or M.Sc. The application of a
system of pointed credits, based on the European
Credit Transfer System, as a measure of
supporting the mobility of the students.
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•  Promotion the mobility of students (access to
  studies, reduced fees) and of the scientific and
  administrative personnel (acknowledgement of
  professional activities carried out in other
  European countries).
•  Promotion of European co-operation in the
  range of implementing systems which ensure a good
  quality of education, taking into account
  comparative criteria and methods of instruction.
• Supporting an indispensable dimension of
  European academic education, particularly in the
  range of the syllabus, cooperation of academic
  institutions, forms of mobility, integrated
  curricula of academic and professional education
  and researches.

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After the meeting in Bologne the ministers
responsible for academic education met again in
Prague (2001) and Berlin (2003). They stressed
there the necessity of developing a strategy of
life-long education. They also came to the
conclusion that the quality of education and
researches would be a decisive factor determining
the world-wide attractivity and competivity of
the European Higher Education Area. Social
importance of EHEA was confirmed with the purpose
of ensuring a social solidarity and reducing all
kinds of inequality. An access of further
countries to the Bolognan Process (up to 40) was
agreed upon. The necessity of introducing a third
cycle of education on the level of PhD studies
was considered to be unavoidable.  
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The Lisbon Strategy   The Process of Bologna is
contained in larger programme, the so-called
"development by knowledge", which was accepted by
the United European Council in Lisbon (March
23rd-24th, 2000). The aim of this programme,
called the Lisbon Strategy, is the development of
the European economy, so that in 2010 it might
compete and become the most dynamic economy all
over the world, basing on a know-how, warranting
a larger number of good jobs and closer
integrity. The realization of such a programme
requires, among others, an economical
transformation and a modernization of the
education system and social welfare.
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At the summit of UE in Barcelona (2002) the
following objectives were assigned concerning
education   The European systems of education
and instruction ought to attain their highest
level of quality, so that they might serve a
model for the entire world, and Europe ought to
become the attractive place for students,
lecturers and researchers from everywhere. The
European systems of education must be compatible,
permitting a free choice of the place of studies
and later the place of work. Qualifications
acquired at school as well as professional
abilities, the knowledge and skills acquired in
any UE country ought to be acknowledged in all
the other countries of the European Union.
                                
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• Europeans should be allowed to learn
  lifelong.
•   The Lisbon Strategy is to help the
  respective countries of the European Union to
  cope with arising challenges due to globalization
  and the growing competition, and also due to the
  aging of the European society. This also means to
  compete with the USA, Japan and other rapidly
  developing Asian countries.
• The construction of a "society of knowledge"
  (a "know-how society") ought to be based on the
  development of the so-called "key abilities",
  yielding precedence to the teaching of computer
  science and natural sciences. This would give
  physics a chance to gain back its appropriate
  ranking as a subject of studies.
•  

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What does physics mean from the viewpoint of
physicists ?
"Physics is the most fundamental and
comprehensive, branches of natural
sciences, affecting the development of
other branches of natural sciences. Experts
in various branches must get familiar with
physics, because it plays a fundamental role
in the understanding of all phenomena that
surround us. Physics is strictly connected not
only with natural sciences, but also with
technology, industry and social sciences,
military techniques and even mathematics. Ric
hard Feyman

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"Physics is the basic natural science,
dealing with researches concerning the
most fundamental and universal properties of
matter and phenomena occurring in our
environment. These properties result from the
interaction of the elementary components of
matter. It is strictly connected with other
natural sciences, making use of their
achievements and interpreting them. It also
offers them access to its own methods and
results. A specific relation is to be observed
between physics and technology physics as a
mother of technology.
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The results of investigations in physics are
sooner or later, but always, applied practically
in the construction of new industrial appliances,
installations and measuring devices. The
practical application of physical discoveries is
sometimes effected by the physicists themselves,
but most often this is done by engineers and
technicians." Andrzej K.Wroblewski
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"The main aim of physics is to find and to know
the fundamental laws of nature, on which all
physical phenomena depend. The history of
sciences indicates a progress towards a deeper
and deeper knowledge and understanding, and on
each successive level the laws and theories are
getting simpler and there are fewer of them (the
so-called Okham razor). At present it is expected
that the elementary particles and their four
fundamental effects (provided they are really
fundamental ones) will explain not only the world
of small quantities, but also the world of large
ones. The same laws of physics which control the
elementary particles, control also the stars and
galaxies. Jay Orear
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Why should we teach physics?
A very important question most of us teach
physics simply because this is our profession.
The student wants that what he must learn remains
in some connection with his future studies and
that it might come in useful in his future
professional life. Is it possible to avoid any
discrepancy between the teachers supply and the
students demand? Knowledge provides man with
quite extraordinary possibilities of exploiting
resources and controlling the forces of nature,
and also points out our aim in life, stressing
its sense. Physics constitutes the basis of our
knowledge.
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• Our knowledge of nature makes it possible to
  control our fate - insufficient education or its
  entire lack leads to alienation.
• Physical knowledge shapes our scientific
  attitude, including thirst for knowledge, manual
  abilities, understanding of technical apparatus,
  space imagination, capability of adaptation and
  mental elasticity, initiative, creativity, the
  skill of planning, designing and investigating,
  as well as diligence and enthusiasm.

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Ideas, having their source in physics,
will continue to constitute central part of
modern culture, similarly as it has been the case
since the beginning of the 17th century. The
development of physics determines also the
possibilities of developing many new branches of
knowledge and technology, from cosmology and
nanoelectronics to biology and medicine. It is
physics that determines supremely our opinions
and the limitsof our practical activities.
Therefore, nobody can be considered to be a
specialist or educated personality if he is not
familiar with some fundamental notions in the
field of physics.
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               Physics teaches to formulate
problems and to find ways of solving them, which
is a good school of life for every future
engineer. In the course of their classes
of physics the students develop their own methods
of carrying out researches by investigating
physical phenomena (and not basing on
investigations carried out by others the
suppression or reduction of laboratory classes at
some faculties is a misunderstanding !).
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  A menace for the integration of knowledge is
the speed which nowadays even the simplest
scientific terminology recedes from the common
language. This means that we must find a
technique of a new way of education and mutual
understanding in order to prevent too large
differences between schemes of thinking and
speaking. Otherwise, the hermetic character of
the scientific language of today might make it
impossible for the intellectuals to understand
the world that surrounds them, and also to see
the important creative role which physics plays
in our culture. Studying physics may moderate
these difficulties and enhance the feeling of the
concomitance of sciences.  
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 What is the reason of such a position of
physics ?
Several thousands of years ago, when the first
civilizations were being born, man faced the
whole surrounding world with his inquisitiveness
expressed by the question "why?". His creative
amazement resulted in fundamental questions and
his endeavour after truth. Thus natural
philosophy arose, identified with knowledge. It
was then, on the turn of the 7th to the 6th
century B.C., that man triad to understand the
world on his own. Even when the answer is not
obvious, it is worth asking, making use of man's
inborn cognitive abilities - thinking and the
evidence of senses.
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The ancient Greeks introduced the notion of two
indispensable conditions of scientific integrity,
namely critical judgment - including
interrogation - and self-criticism, which does
not permit to take any answer as being true. At
that time also the problem of the elementary
character was put forward, connected with the
question "what is the essence of the problem?",
i.e. what is the "arche" of the world (the most
fundamental matter, of which nature is
constructed).
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This problem instilled into the minds of natural
historians the instinct of understanding the
world as elementary principles. Tsung Dao Lee
expressed this idea as follows
"the aim of science is to find such a simple
system of fundamental principles, by means of
which all the known matters of fact can be
explained, predicting new ones".
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Science originates from facts and terminates
with facts
Albert Einstein
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Our contact with the world of stimuli, into which
we have been born and in which we live, is the
outset of our knowledge of nature. Observed facts
are processed into a theoretical model, from
which new facts are deduced. The resulting
previsions are then checked by new experiences.
If what has been checked proves to be negative,
the theoretical model is rejected a positive
results of such a check increases the probability
of its correctness. That is the way of physics
development. Such a paradigm of up-to-date
science has been developed for hundreds of years
and displays an evolutional character.
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The model procedure of researches ought to
comprise the following stages Observations
of phenomena occurring naturally or provoked
artificially in laboratories and recording the
results of these observations (the so-called
naked facts). Formulations of generalizations
(the so-called scientific facts). Composition
of descriptive models (derivation of empirical
laws, the so-called theory with a small "t").
Composition of causal models, justifying the
empirical laws (Theory with a capital "T").
Checking of the theory.
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It ought to be stressed that this model is a
stipulated one and that the most important
activity in the process of researching is to
strike upon good ideas. The formulation of
hypotheses is not subject to the rules of logics,
and neither to any other rules. It is a heuristic
and highly intuitive process. It is Gods bounty.
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The teaching of natural sciences
We stipulate that the process of teaching and
learning should run similarly as the process of
researching. In the course of the first period of
teaching, in the secondary school, naturally the
first two activities will dominate, i.e.
observations and generalizations. The inductive
passing over from facts to empirical laws (the
so-called mathematical descriptive models) will
render an answer to the question "How is it?".
Such a procedure should characterize the process
of teaching students who have already got their
GCE. Such a theory has the function of
marshalling the facts constituting our knowledge.
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Passing over to a higher level of the theory -
which is the case rather at academic schools - is
connected with the question "Why is it just so?
followed by the formulation of hypotheses and the
derivation of mathematical causal models. The
attained theory plays the role of an interpreting
function. The next step should be the checking of
the hypotheses, which is done in the laboratory.
For this purpose by deductive reasoning
conclusions are drawn from the theory, which must
be checked experimentally. In this case the
theory plays the role of a perspicacious
function.
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It is quite obvious that not all stages of the
research process must be realized in classes, and
certainly not all at the same time. But it is the
duty of the teacher to make the students discover
"something" in some given moment. There is no
other way of shaping the key abilities of the
student which are so important with respect to
his future professional activities. He must
experience it on his own cost how hard this may
be. This aim is realized by means of activating
methods, work in small groups, the playing of
different roles by the students. New didactic
situations will force us to adapt organizational
changes. We shall become the coordinators the
active work of the students, observers, advisers
(without providing ready-made recipes) and shall
no longer dominate at the classes.
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An excellent way of realizing this postulate
(making the teaching process to be similar to
research work) is problem teaching. By "problem"
we mean a task, which cannot be solved by means
of the acquired knowledge. In order to solve a
problem task we must activate the so-called
productive thinking, the effect of which is some
new knowledge (indispensable for the solving of
the problem). The solving of any problem is,
therefore, a creative act, intellectual creation,
and a discovery.
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CHINESE WISDOM If you think of tommorow - plant
rice, if you think of what might be in twenty
years - plant trees, and if you think of a still
farther future - teach your children.
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In problem teaching we distinguish the following
typical stages     Creation of a problem
situation.     Formulation of the
problem.     Presentation of hypotheses of the
solution.     Checking the hypotheses.     Rec
ording the new knowledge.  Application of the
new knowledge in new situations.
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How to teach physics ?
Education has become the basis of the development
our modern world the economy based on knowledge
and a learning society. The traditional school is
no longer the dominating source of information,
its competitors being TV, the radio and Internet.
The industrial society has been replaced by a
society of data processing. This means a
transition from the memorizing of information to
developing the ability of self-dependent
learning, the search for information and
selecting it, the application of new techniques
of information and communication. This explosion
of information, increment of knowledge, leads to
tensions between the possibilities of the human
mind and the enormous mass of required (and
available) information.
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These megatrends of our modern indicate the
necessity of lifelong learning and facing new
educational tasks. On the primary and secondary
and still higher level these latter have been
formulated as an educational strategy being
realized already for several years (exactly six
this year the first candidates for
secondary-school certificates have to take the
so-called new GCS). On the academical school
level these tasks have been expressed in the
strategy of academical education. All over the
world these strategies differ widely (also in
Europe) and are hardly comparable. The European
integration aims at a harmonization of
educational systems within the frame of the EHEA
(in the process of Bologna).
34
The "Strategy of the development of academical
education in Poland up to the year 2010", issued
by the Ministry of National Education and Sport,
boasts with a more than threefold growth of the
number of students in the last decade of the
20th century. This is treated as a transition
from privileged to public education. And here are
some numbers Poland - 43.7, USA - 81, Norway -
62 of young people within the age of 19 - 24
years. Our point-blank experience has proved that
such a rise in quantity has decreased the
quality. The Ministry specifies in the quoted
document in more details the first aim of making
academical education available for 65 of young
people in the year 2010.
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The second aim is to improve the quality and
effectiveness of studies. For this purpose in
2002 the State Accreditation Committee was called
into being. The duties of this Committee
comprise, among others, the assessment of the
quality of education (determi-nation the criteria
of marks), taking into account the constantly
changing requirements of the labour market,
judging about the necessity of establishing new
schools and disciplines. The Committee is to be
supplemented by creating Central Examination
Commission of Higher Education controlling the
state of knowledge and know-how. The system of
granting professional certificates (adapted to
the requirements of the European Union and
world-wide standards) determines the minimum of
knowledge and abilities.
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Resulting from this the following changes are to
be mentioned Expansion of the system of
individual studies.                   
Didactic counseling (tutorial system).
Generalization of the syllabi and didactic
tenders.    System of evaluation of the
lecturers. Standardization of examinations
and extramural exams.
37
The third aim of the Ministry of National
Education and Sport is "education for a job -
work after education". Global education is
based on knowledge and technologies of
information and telecommu-nication and requires
instruction in new know-haws in all branches and
professions, including those, which are still in
the making. Education must tend towards the
future, which means an intensification of the
ability to analyze, to develop new ideas and to
show initiative. Access to the Internet and
statistic software is inevitable, as well as the
ability to prepare presentations at seminars and
websites. More students should be allowed to
study technical subjects by arising their
interest in mathematics, logics and other natural
sciences.
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The teaching of physics ought to simulate the
process of researching and have to be the problem
teaching. Due to the rather scarce number of hour
devoted to the teaching of this subject at other
faculties than ours, two ways of instructing may
be applied. One of them is an if possible
complete course of physics, realized
superficially - basing rather on lectures, and
the knowledge of the students is only controlled
(didactic encyclopedias). Another approach
assumes a comprehensive and deep analysis of some
physical phenomena, concerning mainly some
selected branches of physics -applying activating
methods and checking mainly the know-how
(teaching "via physics").
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Teaching via physics is a process of forming
so-called key abilities. The process ought
to Develop versatile minds, ready to learn
continuously (preparation for the finally
intended job).   Improve the ability of
creative thinking with the purpose of solving
problems which may turn up.   Provide good or
even very good fundamentals within the range of
the methodology of physical sciences as the basis
of some narrow specialization.   Develop the
ability of planning, organizing and assessing
ones knowledge and feeling oneself responsible
for it.
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• Train the ability of effective and assertive
  mutual consultation in various situations.
• Provide opportunities for public
  pronouncements.
• Develop the ability of effective cooperation in
  a team and to take collective or individual
  decisions.
• Provide opportunities to make use of various
  sources of informations, to select these
  informations and process them as well to create
  new informations.
• These are the so-called key abilities.
•  

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Projecting the didactic process
Projecting the didactic process proceeds in steps
in compliance with a given scheme, which is a
system with a back coupling. There are three main
phases in the scheme of the teaching process
projecting
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Projecting the didactic process
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In the phase of planning the main purpose is to
build up the catalogue of operation aims (the
so-called result plan). Previously we have to
state subject matter to be taught and also take
into account standards of educational
requirements as well as the educational aims
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Phase of planning
REQUIREMENTS
RESULT PLAN (catalogue of operation aims )
EDUCATION AIMS, STANDARDS
MATERIAL OF EDUCATION
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The phase of realization begins with didactic
measurement at the input and ends with the
measurement at the output. Procedures applied to
achieve the aims are a very important tool in the
phase of realization activating methods of
teaching, instruments of evaluation and testing
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Phase of realization
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The phase of reflexion contains
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The phase of reflexion
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Our didactic process is well projected if all
students are included inside so-called flow
channel. We can see that in the following
diagram
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ANXIETY
LEVEL OF REQUIREMENTS
CHANNEL OF FLOW
A3
80
BOREDOM
60
A1
40
20
A22
0
2
1
3
ABILITIES
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Exemplary standards of requirements

• I. Knowledge and understanding.
• Application of notions and physical quantities in
  descriptions of phenomena
• Explanation of phenomena and principles of the
  operation of technical appliances basing on
  physical laws
• II. Making use of information.
• Reading and analyzing information contained in
  the text and tables, in diagrams and drawings
• Supplementation of missing elements in the
  diagram, drawing, table or text.
• Planning of experiments, prediction of results.

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• III. Composition of information.
• Application of notions and physical laws in
  the process of solving theoretical and practical
  problems.
• Construction of physical and mathematical
  models for the description of encountered
  phenomena.
• Experiments, analyses and presentation of
  the obtained results.

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• Some remarks about teaching aims
• The aims of teaching are the effects,
  which we want to attain. We distinguish between
  general and operative aims. General aims indicate
  the direction of our pedagogical aspirations,
  expressed as standards of requirements (syllabi)
  and educational purposes. Operative aims
  constitute a precise, detailed and concrete
  description of the results which are to be
  obtained by the students as their achievements
  and these aims make the result plan. A few
  examples of educational aims are as follows
• Ability of making observations, describing,
  explaining and predicting phenomena making use of
  physical laws and models.

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• Ability of presenting the results of ones
  own observations, experiments and considerations.
• Recognition of the fundamental laws (ideas)
  describing the progress of physical and
  astronomical phenomena in nature.
• Application of ones knowledge and abilities
  in engineering.
• Awareness of the limits of applicability of
  physical laws and models.

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• Determination of the aims of teaching in their
  operative form consists in a change of the
  general aims into operative ones and comprises
  the following stages
• Denomination of the activity.
• Description of the conditions of realizing this
  activity.
• Stating the criterion, in compliance with which
  the activity may be considered as having been
  realized.
• Assignment of the activities an aim taxonomy
  category (AC), a requirement level (RL) and an
  examination standard (ES).

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• A suitable example of the above describing
  procedure is presented now. The student
• Recognizes the granular tissue (activity).
• On the micro slide, working with an optical
  microscope with a magnifying power of 40 times
  (conditions).
• Indicating in the course of four minutes at
  least five elements observed in the preparation
  (criterion).

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• An important tool for creating the result plan
  is the so-called taxonomy of the aims of
  teaching. This is a hierarchical classification
  of the aims of teaching extending beyond the
  subject matter. It comprises two levels and four
  categories (A, B, C and D)
• The level of knowledge memorization (A) and
  understanding (B).
• The level of abilities - application in typical
  situation (C) and application in problem
  situation (D).

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The aims are important, but investigation
to the aim are equally essential !
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• A real part of the operative aim, especially for
  students, is levels of requirements. The
  formulation of requirements is a self-dependent
  and creative activity of the teacher. It consists
  in the assignment of an adequate value to any
  given aim, depending on the so-called context. We
  distinguish the following levels of requirements
• Fundamental (F) - satisfactory mark.
• Extensive (E) - good mark.
• Supplementary (S) - very good mark.

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Criteria of the stratification of teaching aims
according to requirements levels contain
accessibility, educational value, reliability
(scientific certainty, durability in the
culture), inevitability within the frame of the
subject interdisciplinary inevitability, utility
in future professional life. An exemplary result
plan built up according to the above mentioned
principles is presented below.
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Nr The student AC RL ES
1 Knows the integral expression for work A F I.1
2 Quotes examples of conservative forces B F I.1
3 Can prove that the work of the conservative force equals the decrement of a body potential energy Ep C E III.2
4 Motivates the principle of the conservation of mechanical energy B E I.2
5 Solves typical problems concerning the changing Ep of gravitation and elasticity into kinetic energy Ek and vice versa C S III.1
6 Can calculate the mechanical energy of a satellite C E III.1
7 Explains the idea of the binding energy of a bodies system B E I.2
8 Solves problem tasks connected with the conversion of mass to energy D S III.1
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• And finally some "positive" practical
  conclusions
• Information and motivation are equally
  necessary for your students tell them what
  they have to reach.
• If the students start to learn only
  half-heartedly, deepen the aims and restrict the
  subject matter.
• When you teach, avoid unnecessary knowledge.
• The results of learning are exposed best in the
  student activities, when he applies his knowledge
  and abilities in actual challenges that he has to
  face in his life.

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Thank you for Your attention