%0 Journal Article
%T Preparing future teachers to anticipate student difficulties in physics in a graduate-level course in physics, pedagogy, and education research
%A John R. Thompson
%A Warren M. Christensen
%A Michael C. Wittmann
%J Physical Review Special Topics. Physics Education Research
%D 2011
%I 
%X We describe courses designed to help future teachers reflect on and discuss both physics content and student knowledge thereof. We use three kinds of activities: reading and discussing the literature, experiencing research-based curricular materials, and learning to use the basic research methods of physics education research. We present a general overview of the two courses we have designed as well as a framework for assessing student performance on physics content knowledge and one aspect of pedagogical content knowledge¡ªknowledge of student ideas¡ªabout one particular content area: electric circuits. We find that the quality of future teachers¡¯ responses, especially on questions dealing with knowledge of student ideas, can be successfully categorized and may be higher for those with a nonphysics background than those with a physics background.
%U http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevSTPER.7.010108