VIRTUAL EXPERIMENT AS A COMPONENT OF THE MODERN PHYSICS LESSON: ORGANIZATIONAL AND METHODOLOGICAL ASPECTS

Abstract

The article addresses the relevant problem of systematically incorporating virtual laboratories into physics education. The aim of the study is a thorough analysis of domestic and international experience regarding organizational and methodological approaches to the use of virtual experiments as a component of the modern physics lesson. A review of the literature indicates that the use of virtual laboratories in the classroom promotes the development of students' theoretical knowledge and research skills. A three-stage model for integrating simulations is proposed and described in detail: the preparatory stage — familiarizing students with the experimental setup and research method in avirtual environment; the main stage — independent conduct of the experiment, including formulating objectives, following a plan of action, and recording results; and the consolidation and generalization stage — repeated investigation with additional tasks aimed at deepening knowledge and developing data analysis skills. This approach ensures a gradual increase in the complexity of research tasks and enables students to complete a full cycle of scientific inquiry — from problem formulation to the synthesis of results. A practical implementation is presented using the topic "Ohm's Law for a Circuit Section" with resources from the PhET platform, describing the actions of both the teacher and students at each stage of the lesson; the results demonstrated that virtual laboratories enable a deeper understanding of the relationships between physical quantities. The study identifies and elaborates the key pedagogical and technical criteria for selecting interactive simulations, namely: academic accuracy, a high level of interactivity, alignment with the curriculum, ease of interface use, and technical accessibility. It is shown that the use of virtual laboratories stimulates scientific thinking and students' cognitive interest, allowing them to work at an individual pace or within group projects. The transformation of the teacher's role — from knowledge provider to facilitator who fosters conditions for student selforganization, poses problem-based questions, facilitates discussion, and guides the research process — is substantiated. An assessment approach is proposed that combines traditional questioning in the form of open-ended questions with tasks requiring the interpretation of experimental data.