Project-Based Learning in Secondary Science: Digital Experiences in Finnish Classroom

This chapter analyses the integration of digital tools and project-based learning pedagogy into secondary physics teaching and learning. The teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) model is used as a framework for this analysis. TPACK combines Shulman’s structure of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), content or subject matter knowledge and knowledge and skills needed for the use of digital tools and environments. As a practical tool for planning a lesson, a modified content representation (CoRe) tool with emphasy to the use of digital tools (CoDiRe) is introduced. Two concrete examples of will be introduced and analysed. The first example introduces project-based learning and the use of digital tools, while students make sense of phenomena related to moving objects. The second example is from our collaborative research with physics teachers during the COVID-time, when physics teaching was organised in distance teaching mode and traditional laboratory activities was difficult to organise.