HISTORY OF PHYSICS’ TEXTBOOK DEVELOPMENT AS A MODEL FOR THE IMPLEMENTATION OF METHODS OF TEACHING PHYSICS IN RUSSIA (ON THE COURSE “HISTORY OF THE METHODS OF TEACHING PHYSICS”)

Abstract

In Russia, by the very beginning of the twentieth century, the formation of methods of teaching
physics as a pedagogical science had been completed. This means that teaching methods specific
to teaching physics had been formed. These methods were reflected on and documented not only
in the works on the methods of teaching physics, but also in the educational literature directly
addressed to the student and teacher: textbooks, books of solved problems, manuals on laboratory
works and demonstration experiments. One of the signs of a certain completeness of the process
of formation of the methods of teaching physics as a science is the reference of the leading
physicists-methodists to the history of the formation of the methods of teaching physics.
The object of their research were textbooks published in Russia in the XVIII–XIX centuries.
The scientific tradition of studying the history of the method of teaching physics was supported
in Soviet times.
In the twentieth century, the theory of a textbook was created, its didactic functions were
clarified, the didactic apparatus was determined, and the textbooks themselves were improved
accordingly. The idea of a methodical system of education was formed in didactics, and a textbook
itself could be considered as a model of such a system. In the 21st century, the theory of
a textbook undergoes noticeable changes and the problem of continuity arises, the need to analyze
both the changing didactic functions of a textbook and the development of a textbook’s
apparatus as a whole.
The paper is an attempt to substantiate the possibility of considering the history of the formation
of a physics textbook as a model for studying the development of teaching methods. At the
same time, specific examples were used to consider the change of the content of physics textbooks,
their structure and a comparative analysis of foreign scientists was made.
The content of the article can be used as the base of the course “The History of the Methods
of Teaching Physics”.