Koumaras Panagiotis

Professor

Instruction with emphasis in Experimental Learning and Teaching

DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCES AND NEW TECHNOLOGIES

I was born in 1952 in Chryssovitsi of Tripolis prefecture. I graduated in 1975 from the School of Physics of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. In 1977 I was appointed as a Research & Teaching Assistant at the Atomic and Nuclear Physics Laboratory of the Physics & Mathematics Faculty of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
From 1981 to 1991 I moved to Public Secondary Education as a physics teacher.
I obtained my PhD in science education at the School of Physics of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in 1989.
In 1990 I was elected Lecturer in the field of Teaching Material –Experimental teaching at the School of Primary Education of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Since 2003 I am a Professor in Education with emphasis on Experimental Teaching and Teaching Material.

My scholarship (ex. books, articles, PhD supervision, etc) focuses on:
1. Investigating students’ alternative ideas and causal reasoning used for generating interpretations and predictions of natural phenomena as well as developing teaching materials and science curriculum to address those alternative ideas.
2. Studying and using history of science for the development of teaching material.
3. Designing teaching material with everyday objects within the context of everyday life.
4. Studying and developing science curricula towards the knowledge and competences for life.

I have been working for 10 years in the field of science curricula. In that field:
a) I have supervised six doctoral dissertations that were graded with “excellent”,
b) I have co-authored two books that were published,
c) I was responsible for developing the new Cypriot science curriculum for primary and secondary education, and
d) I have presented related papers in international conferences.