Experiments in Electricity and Magnetism for Future Teachers: From Lectures to Teaching Labs

The paper reports on an improved approach to pre-service physics teacher training in electricity and magnetism at our faculty. This training starts with an experiment-based lecture in the first year, complemented by an optional seminar that emphasizes experiments students will be able to use in their future teaching. Three years later, it culminates in teaching labs dedicated to this field. The motivation for changing the previous traditional teaching of this topic, the important features of the current state of the art, and the lessons learned are presented. All this is illustrated by a number of examples of experiments that have proved useful and attractive to students.