ABSTRACT
This study investigated whether a teachers’ professional development model built around the use of place and culture as the fundamental principles could improve physics teachers’ content and pedagogical knowledge. The model was evaluated using formative and summative evaluation and the teachers’ knowledge and competences were examined, as well as the understanding of the learners, learning design and implementation, evaluation of learning outcomes, and the development of learners in actualizing their various potentials. The ability of teachers to develop physics learning activities to define the principles and concepts of units, standards and measurements, Newton’s laws and their applications, temperature, heat and heat transfer, and sound waves was also studied. This mixed-methods study was carried out with 23 in-service teachers. The resulting model of a culture-based teacher education and training program has four major characteristics: it is a participatory model adaptation; the structure and content of the program are developed by deliberating the perspectives, customs, beliefs and values of local Nusa Tenggara Timur (NTT) culture; the principles of adult learning are applied; the model provides teachers/participants with the ability to develop culture-based physics learning activities for local NTT culture.
