Sciences études

Point of attention

In 2024-2025, you still have the opportunity to start a didactic finality. From September 2025, to enter teacher training from the 4th year of secondary education, you must:

  • either undertake a master's degree in teaching section 4 (120 credits), after a disciplinary bachelor's degree (180 credits)
  • or take a master's degree in teaching section 5 (60 credits), after a disciplinary bachelor's degree (180 credits) and a disciplinary master's degree (60 or 120 credits)

More information on initial teacher training

Physics and education

Teaching science, and physics in particular, remains a major challenge in our increasingly technological world, where there is a shortage of scientists in both business and basic research. Training young people and motivating them to undertake scientific studies remains a major educational challenge.

Teaching and especially learning physics remain difficult, not only because of the abstract nature of the discipline, but also because the difficulties are inherent in the conceptual nature of physics and intrinsic to the discipline.

Your objectives

  • Initiate you into the didactics of physics, where the notion of primary conceptions, also known as spontaneous conceptions, will be omnipresent, as it is one of the founding elements of the discipline. Improving the way physics is learned remains a priority didactic objective.
  • Practicing experimentation, the second founding component of experimental science didactics. In line with learners' primary conceptions, choose the most appropriate experiments to present, i.e. those that make them think and develop critical thinking.

The benefits of training

  • A choice between specialization and broader training through elective courses, dissertation, personal work and internship.
  • A broad training in the different fields of physics with specializations (lasers, new materials, environmental physics, life physics, data science and didactics) that offer a wide range of job opportunities directly after the master's degree.
  • An ethical awareness: physicists' responsibility in building a fairer, more sustainable world.

Research and dissertation

Sciences études

Here are two dissertation topics by way of example:

Teaching and learning about the concept of electrical potential. What is the history of this concept? When and why was it introduced? What are the difficulties involved in learning it? How
can they be identified? What are the possible options for teaching it and improving learning? Video vignettes to present physics experiments. Are they always effective? How can they be designed to enhance understanding and... therefore learning?

Other master's degrees in physics

The University of Namur is organizing:

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Description

The teaching focus of the master 120 in physics offers general training in education and pedagogy and specific training in epistemology and practice of physics education in secondary education.

In addition to the compulsory courses, which improve the general education of the physicist, the teaching focus is characterized by a didactic training and epistemology of a second scientific discipline (select mathematics, chemistry, biology). The student can also choose courses for specialization in a non-exhaustive list. It may also choose courses from another department, another faculty or another university. A research project organized in the second semester of the 1st year of Master is to perfect the research training that will culminate in the realization of a final dissertation during the second year of master. An 8-week internship in Belgium or abroad is also organized in the second semester of the last year of master.

International mobility and openness

Students have the opportunity to study abroad within the Erasmus scheme for Europe, they can also do an internship in a research centre in Belgium or abroad, and a department theme trip to a renowned international laboratory (USA, Switzerland, France, etc.).

Teaching methods

The Master’s degree in Physical Sciences is offered at Unamur under three different focuses. Regardless of the orientation, the programme includes a common core as well as courses that students can choose from a wide range of options. The compulsory courses ensure that students acquire throrough knowledge in crucial domains of modern Physics. The courses chosen from options cover more specialised fields linked with Physics of Matter, Radiation and Wave-Matter Interaction.

Alongside this traditional course-oriented training, students receive initiation to research, which will include the acquisition of teaching skills for those choosing the teaching focus. This training towards research will add to a good number of credits, as it associates two types of activities. In the first stage of the initation to research, students will undertake a project on a well-defined subject during the first year, involving bibliographical research, a personal experimental or theoretical development, and a presentation of the obtained results. The second stage constitutes the actual research project and dissertation, which is to be completed throughout the second year. It must be an innovative project, carried out under the guidance of a member of the academic staff or a member of the department. A dissertation and an oral presentation will allow a jury to assess its value.

The training as described above is completed through a work placement / internship in accordance with the chosen focus. It can take place in industry (specialised focus),   within the University department or at an external research centre (in-depth focus), or within the Belgian Secondary system (focus on teaching).               The choice of focus has to be made at the beginning of the second year, and leads to thirty specific credits.

Aims and objectives

Aims and objectives are established as follows  :

  • Understanding natural phenomena in their complexity : how electromagnetic radiation propagates in various environments and interacts with matter, how the quantum properties of nanoscopic materials lead to technological revolutions (nano-electronics, nanophotonics…) how cellular tissue responds to radiation from photons or particles (particularly in cancer treatment),
  • Modelling of innovative physical systems, following nature’s patterns ;
  • Biomimetism is a new approach which seeks to follow and copy the patterns of complex organic structures in various animal or plant species which have been perfected over millions of years of evolution (within the field of optics, natural photonics is a new field, inspired by this approach) ;
  • Addressing Environmental issues and developing applications that can contribute to Sustainable Energy (improving the performance of photovoltaic cells, developing hybrid materials for fuel-producing batteries, reducing pollution of the atmosphere, etc.)

The focus on teaching offers general training in education as well as more specific training towards epistemology and the teaching of Physics in secondary school; students also have to choose a second scientific discipline in which they will also receive training orientated towards the teaching of that particular subject. Possible choices are the teaching of Mathematics, Chemistry or Biology.

This focus follows the legal prescriptions of Qualified Teachers Status within upper level of the Belgian Secondary System (Agregé de l’Enseignement Secondaire Supérieur) and is granted together with the Master’s degree in Physics with a focus on Teaching.

Assessment

Depending on the activities, the assessment of the acquired knowledge is done following three main methods :

  1. an oral exam with the lecturer or lecturers having given the specific course
  2. the elaboration of a report which is then assessed by a member of the academic staff
  3. a presentation of a seminar summarising the pursued goals, the methodology that was used and the work accomplished.

The assessments take place during the specific periods of the academic year that have been assigned for this purpose.

For a certain number of activities, ongoing assessment is carried out as the activity develops. This approach is certainly the one used in the framework of internships and projects and their dissertation.

Teaching profile

The Master’s degree in Physical Sciences that Unamur offers aims at furthering the training that students have received while completing their bachelor’s degree. Students make a choice among three focuses (in-depth focus, focus on specialisation, focus on teaching) in the first year of the Master’s training, which allows them to perfect their knowledge in Physics within a more specific domain. Besides broadening the general knowledge of modern Physics that every physicist is expected to have acquired, this training is clearly oriented towards research. Students will benefit from the members of staff’s expertise in research, specifically in the areas of Matter and Radiance and in the exploitation of the interactions between this duality. They receive constant guidance from renowned researchers and from professors who have developed teaching strategies whose effectiveness and reliability have been highly rated over the years.

The general subject-linked training is supplemented by a more interdisciplinary approach, including courses such as philosophy, ethics, languages and communication in the field of science, aiming at developing openmindedness and critical thinking.

Les métiers des physiciens

Physicists' professions

Various skills

Thanks to their general multidisciplinary training (physics, mathematics, computer science, physical chemistry, new materials...), physicists are offered a fairly wide range of careers: academic research, teaching, computer-related activities, development activities in industry and hospitals...

Tough and rigorous, with good analytical skills, excellent mathematical modeling abilities and a rich scientific culture, physicists contribute to the advancement of knowledge and the development of applications in the service of mankind.

All these high value-added skills make physicists valued professionals on the job market.

Pushing the limits of our knowledge

According to a survey of our alumni, more than half of young graduates start their professional lives with experience in scientific research, mainly in academia, in Belgium or abroad. Universities and public funds finance the completion of a PhD (usually 4 years) or grant scholarships for participation in a research program.

Other physicists pursue their investigative work at leading-edge research institutes in very specific fields (e.g. CENAERO, a center of excellence in aeronautics in Gosselies, CERN, the particle physics laboratory in Geneva, SCK-CEN, the center for the study of nuclear energy in Mol or the Royal Meteorological Institute).

Developing industrial applications

In industrial settings, physicists are also involved in the development of high-tech or highly specific products (e.g. glass treated to save energy, safer sheet metal for the automotive industry, cyclotrons for nuclear medicine, etc.). They are also found at the head of important responsibilities downstream from research and development, notably in production departments.

Informatics and telecommunications

A solid IT background makes physicists operational in IT service companies (consultancy) or in any type of user organization (bank, insurance company,
etc.). The telecommunications sector in particular calls on the expertise of physicists for their skills in optics, electronics or even information processing.

Transmitting a passion for reality

Among the activities open to physicists, teaching and the world of training in general remain very buoyant. Over 15% of our professionally active graduates communicate their passion for reality by teaching physics as well as science and mathematics in Haute École or upper secondary education.

Physics and medicine

In the hospital environment, physicists work alongside doctors: they take part in drawing up treatment plans for patients cared for by nuclear medicine; they ensure the quality control of various medical imaging equipment; they also contribute to the development of new analysis technologies.

Expert physicists

The administration calls on the expertise of physicists. They guide policies on energy, the environment, space, etc., for example by issuing opinions on research priorities.

Testimonials from former students

The research institute where I work is concerned with the composition of our atmosphere and air quality. We are developing analytical techniques for
continuous measurement of the concentration of a range of key atmospheric gases, using satellite and ground-based instruments. These activities are carried out in an international context, in collaboration with major European agencies such as ESA and EUMETSAT.

Christophe - Institute of Space Aeronomy

Thanks to the work accomplished during my PhD thesis at UNamur and the encounters made, I am now a postdoctoral researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in California. My time is divided between laboratory work, analysis of results and writing articles or scientific projects. In the laboratory, the tasks to be accomplished are diverse and include both highly technical and highly specialized aspects, such as laser alignment, sample preparation and data acquisition. Analysis of results includes code development.

Frédéric - Lawrence Berkeley National Lab

At UNamur, I acquired a solid background in physics as well as a passion for optical phenomena present in living organisms, such as their staining. I am currently conducting
research into the fluorescence of beetles and butterflies. This research is interdisciplinary, enabling me to work not only with physicists, but also with biologists, chemists and engineers. The aim is to understand the influence of color on the behavior of living organisms, with a view to developing new technological applications inspired by nature.

Sébastien - University of Exeter in the UK

After my thesis at UNamur, where I acquired solid multidisciplinary knowledge, I did a two-year postdoctorate at a marine biology institute in San Diego. Now I work as a corporate consultant, at all levels: market research, sales reorganization, purchasing, tender support.

Annick - H & Z