African Physics Teachers Association

African Physics Teachers Association

The African Physical Society has established the African Physics Teachers Association as a subsidiary organization, in the same organizational structure of the African Association of Physics Students.

The intent is organize primary and secondary physics teachers into a professional learning community to improve the members professional praxis.

Teachers’ Program at ACP

The African Conference on Fundamental Physics and Applications, or African Conference on Physics (ACP), is a biennial physics conference organized in connection with the African School of Physics (ASP).

A dedicated program is organized to train teachers for better and improved physics teachings. International experts design the program in collaboration with the local organizing committee (LOC) of the host country. The LOC—in consultation with the Ministry of Education—is responsible to identify the teachers that participate in this program. Up to 80 teachers are accepted for an intensive program of one-week. The teachers’ program runs in parallel to the Students Program and designed such that the teachers participate in the ASP Forum.

A relevant physics curriculum : tapping indigenous African knowledge systems

Cable Moji and Annemarie Hattingh, A relevant physics curriculum : tapping indigenous African knowledge systems,
Indilinga African Journal of Indigenous Knowledge Systems, Volume 7, Issue 2, Dec 2008, p. 223 – 236

Within a constructivist approach to learning physics, prior knowledge had been found to underpin learning in a significant way – either as a hindering or helping factor. One key issue that accounts for effective learning of science in Africa has been the controversial status of prior knowledge that learners bring into the classroom. This article aims to continue the discussion along these lines but with the express objective to illustrate how physics teachers / lectures can draw on indigenous African knowledge as they teach concepts and introduce terminology and nomenclature in the physics curriculum.