Physics education for 21st century graduates

Abstract

Abstract The 21st century world in which today’s students are growing up is different in a number of important ways from last century. It is characterised by ubiquitous and increasingly sophisticated technology, accelerating climate change, globalisation, and the concentration of the bulk of the world’s wealth in the hands of an ever-decreasing percentage of its population. There was also the great recession of 2008. Taken together, these things are impacting on students’ thinking patterns, behaviours, expectations, constraints and opportunities. Broad global developments, such as the fourth industrial revolution, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the recent rise of so-called fake news and popular rejection of evidence-based thinking, frame the context for what we can and must do in educating our students. What are the implications for physics and physics teaching? Physicists have always maintained that learning physics develops ways of thinking and solving problems that have broad applicability. While that may be true, no human endeavour can ever be divorced from context. How is the teaching of physics being affected by the global context, and how can physics teaching contribute to addressing global challenges? In this paper, I present key characteristics of who we are teaching, and make suggestions, in broad terms, about what and how we should teach in order to equip our students to be successful 21st graduates. That involves being able to navigate the complexities and uncertainties of a turbulent world, today and tomorrow, and, hopefully, contribute to making it a better place for all of its inhabitants.