Sunday, November 13, 2011

Are science teachers using experiments as props in lessons?

6:29 AM | Posted by Free Game Zone | | Edit Post

students generally enjoy conducting experiments - but the abuse at them when the teachers should be teaching the theory asks again

Alom Shaha

Remember

burning magnesium in school? Doing this for the first time when I was 11, just starting high school is one of those magical experiences that all students should have. But I am not convinced that the same is true of all practical work in science classes in school.

Courses

practice are very popular among students and teachers. However, its popularity among students may be in the fact that they are less demanding than the theory. The same can be true for teachers - after all, it is easier for a child bunsen correct about what is to verify that he or she understood the corpuscular theory of matter is easier to teach a child connect an ammeter to teach a correct understanding of electric current. In fact, a study of future teachers reported in the journal this month, the School of Science concluded that "most of them approach learning as a way to lower order objectives, such as the names of the teams and using standard procedures. "

many standard practices of school science experiments intended to be when they are nothing of the sort. What we are doing a lot of time, for example, when asked "to investigate the factors affecting the strength of a wire," is to enable students to undertake practical work, with the intention they discover something already known. This approach has been described as "intellectually dishonest" by Rosalind Driver in his important essay, the fallacy of induction. Is pedagogically naive and wrong to think that all we need to do as teachers of science is to give children the opportunity to discover the laws of science themselves. As a pilot, he wrote, "explain clearly and do not arise solely from the data." However, this approach to practical work continues, according to Professor Robin Millar, due to "the prevalence of 'empiricist / inductive science ... the belief that ideas "emerge" automatically from the event itself if students work with sufficient care. "As Millar, who has conducted extensive research on what students learn the practical work, he says, "in practice this rarely happens."

I have a suggestion
simple to do: perhaps the time spent doing experiments of this type could be better spent? Maybe our students learn more if we can make these practices a different way, stopping on the pretext that they are real science and the use of the practice of extracting specific points of education, for example, the limits of laboratory measurements. Perhaps some would be best practice demonstrations in the classroom to devote more time to discuss the results and less time faffing around with the camera. Millar and others suggest that one of the most valuable things we can do in a laboratory practice speaking and yet, their research shows that this happens about as much as it should.
  • It is reasonable to assume that doing science can be a great way to learn science. But as my former professor of physics PGCE, Professor Jonathan Osborne, he says, is a "dangerous assumption". According to Osborne, the role of science is to "build on the young student a thorough understanding of a body of knowledge existing in this way, you have to show why this knowledge is evaluated. It was hard earned, and science -. is a creative process that gives you the opportunity to free themselves from the shackles of conventional wisdom by creating their own knowledge, however, this is not the same as doing science and there is a clear line in the sand must be established between the two activities. "
Despite the views of Osborne and other senior science education, many people see the practical work as an innate part of science education and feel they need additional justification. Sometimes the media seems to report a decrease in the amount of practical work we do in science class and it is not suggested that we should do the job more convenient, that somehow, if we could do more experience to dramatically improve the quality of science education in this country. These reports seem to ignore the fact that students in the UK devote more time to practice than their peers in other countries and that "there is little evidence that the work practice that really motivates the students, rather than alleviate trouble with their "theory", offering a break to listen and write. "Words such as" motivation "and" enthusiasm "are presented in the defense of labor practice, however, when students were asked to choose the methods that were" more useful and effective in helping to understand the science school ", the two approaches were" a discussion / debate in class "and" take notes of the teacher. "

science education in the UK is facing a number of challenges, not least is the severe shortage of physics teachers. Those who have the power to make a change would do well to recognize the complexity of the situation instead of offering "more practical work" as a sort of panacea. The energy and resources should focus on improving the quality of practical work at a school rather than simply increase the amount of it.



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