Search results for "Science instruction"
showing 6 items of 36 documents
The Prospects of Transdisciplinary Approach to Promote Learners’ Cognitive Interest in Natural Science for Sustainable Development
2018
Abstract The use of transdisciplinary approach to promote learners’ interest in the acquisition of natural science at school provides new opportunities for a complex explanation of the phenomenon and improving the quality of the process of learning. The aim of the study is to explore the learners’ cognitive interest, personal participation and the approaches chosen by teachers from the perspective of transdisciplinary approach. The study characterises students’ subjective evaluations of their personal participation and cognitive interest in the subjects of biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics, and the approaches used by teachers. The participants were 9th grade students from 17 Latvi…
Long term stability of learning outcomes in undergraduates after an open-inquiry instruction on thermal science
2018
This paper investigates the efficacy of an open-inquiry approach to achieve a long term stability of physics instruction. This study represents the natural continuation of a research project started four years ago when a sample of thirty engineering undergraduates, having already attended traditional university physics instruction, were involved in a six-week long learning experience of open-inquiry research activities within the highly motivating context of developing a thermodynamically efficient space base on Mars. Four years later, we explore the effectiveness of that learning experience by analyzing the outcomes that the students achieved by answering again the same questionnaire that …
Clarification requests as a method of pursuing understanding in CLIL physics lectures
2018
AbstractUsing multimodal conversation analysis, this article examines how students strive to resolve non-understandings through requests for clarification during teacher-fronted physics lectures ta...
Transferencia inter-dominios en resolución de problemas : una propuesta instruccional basada en el proceso de «traducción algebraica»
2009
Understanding a science and math word problem means constructing mental representations at different levels of abstraction. Secondary students have dificulties solving algebraic word problems due to the transition from the concrete representation to the mathematic representation. In order to facilitate the «algebraic translation» of the problems, we adapt a «rule to put a problem into equations» by Puig (1998) and insert it in an experimental methodology devoted to improving the inter-domain transfer in science. Results show the power of the instructional methodology to overcome most of the students’ dificulties, no matters their average academic performance.
Does using a visual-representation tool foster students’ ability to identify forces and construct free-body diagrams?
2013
Earlier research has shown that after physics instruction, many students have difficulties with the force concept, and with constructing free-body diagrams (FBDs). It has been suggested that treating forces as interactions could help students to identify forces as well as to construct the correct FBDs. While there is evidence that identifying interactions helps students in quantitative problem solving, there is no previous research investigating the effect of a visual-representation tool—an interaction diagram (ID)—on students’ ability to identify forces, and to construct the correct FBDs.We present an empirical study conducted in 11 Finnish high schools on students (n ¼ 335, aged 16) takin…
Challenging Transmission Modes of Teaching in Science Classrooms : Enhancing Learner-Centredness through Dialogicity
2017
There is an ongoing reform towards more inquiry-based teaching in school curriculum policy in South Africa. Reform towards more inquiry-based approaches is already integrated in pre-service teacher education programmes. As inquiry-based approaches have been gaining momentum worldwide, there is an increasing concern that dialogic interaction in classroom communication is being neglected. This is especially within teacher-orchestrated classroom interactions that should foster greater learner centredness and thus authentic scientific inquiry. In learner-centred teaching approaches, student contributions should be explicitly taken into account as part of classroom interactions in science. Learn…