Elementary school children’s understanding of science: The implementation of an extracurricular science intervention     

《Contemporary educational psychology》2017

The promotion of students’ achievement and competence in the so-called STEM disciplines is one cornerstone of current educational research and practice. In particular, as early as elementary school, the fostering of an adequate understanding of science is a normative goal of science education. It facilitates students’ science learning and enables them to understand the nature and development of scientific knowledge. Based on the relevance of the promotion of young children’s understanding of science, a corresponding science intervention was recently developed and successfully evaluated in a first study under highly controlled conditions. The goal of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of this intervention when implemented in practice. One hundred seventeen third- and fourth-grade students and 10 trained course instructors participated in this study. We applied a randomized block design with waitlist control groups and repeated measures. The results revealed that children assigned to the intervention compared with children assigned to the waitlist control group showed better inquiry-related methodological competencies (a better understanding of the scientific inquiry cycle and experimentation strategies) and a higher need for cognition. The findings point to the successful implementation of the intervention and are compared with the results of the first study.  相似文献   

EUROPEAN DISSERTATION SUMMARIES     

Mijung Kim  Aik‐Ling Tan 《International Journal of Science Education》2013,35(4):465-472

To alleviate teachers’ reluctance toward practical work, there has been much discussion on teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge, teaching materials, and failsafe strategies for practical work. Despite these efforts, practical work is still regarded as a challenging task for many elementary science teachers. To understand the complexity of teachers’ conflicts in practical work, this study examines teachers’ ideas about teaching and learning that influence teachers’ decision‐making and action on teaching practical work. More important than knowing technical–rational aspects of practical work is to understand the internal contradictions that teachers have to resolve within themselves regarding their capabilities and beliefs about science teaching and practical work. Using stories and experiences of 38 third‐year university students in a science method course in Korea, we seek to understand the conflicts and negotiations that they experience as they make decisions regarding practical work throughout their course. Reflective writings and group discussions on their lived experiences and concerns were used to probe participants’ ideas on teaching using practical work. From written and verbal data, themes were saturated in terms of the aspects which could (dis)encourage their practice. Results suggest that there are multifactorial challenges in pre‐service teachers’ understandings and concerns in practical work. Besides time, materials, and curriculum, pedagogical assumptions and values also compositely challenge the minds of teachers. As the pre‐service elementary teachers negotiated within themselves the importance of science in classroom and social levels, the question is raised about their identities as pre‐service elementary teachers to appreciate the balance between science teaching and practical work.  相似文献   

Promoting cognitive and social aspects of inquiry through classroom discourse     

Hui Jin  Xin Wei  Peiran Duan  Yuying Guo  Wenxia Wang 《International Journal of Science Education》2016,38(2):319-343

We investigated how Chinese physics teachers structured classroom discourse to support the cognitive and social aspects of inquiry-based science learning. Regarding the cognitive aspect, we examined to what extent the cognitive processes underlying the scientific skills and the disciplinary reasoning behind the content knowledge were taught. Regarding the social aspect, we examined how classroom discourse supported student learning in terms of students' opportunities to talk and interaction patterns. Our participants were 17 physics teachers who were actively engaged in teacher education programs in universities and professional development programs in local school districts. We analyzed one lesson video from each participating teacher. The results suggest both promises and challenges. Regarding the cognitive aspect of inquiry, the teachers in general recognized the importance of teaching the cognitive processes and disciplinary reasoning. However, they were less likely to address common intuitive ideas about science concepts and principles. Regarding the social aspect of inquiry, the teachers frequently interacted with students in class. However, it appeared that facilitating conversations among students and prompting students to talk about their own ideas are challenging. We discuss the implications of these findings for teacher education programs and professional development programs in China.  相似文献   

美术欣赏教学的"五字法"     

曾桂生 《九江职业技术学院学报》2003,(3):49-50

美术欣赏，是一种审美情感的教育，它既能提高学生的审美能力，又能培养学生的创造精神，这种独特的教育功能早已被一些专家、学论证，然而，采取什么样的方法才能更有效地发挥其功能和作用呢?本从五个方面对美术欣赏教学的形式和方法进行了研究探索。  相似文献   

Development and Validation of a Multimedia-based Assessment of Scientific Inquiry Abilities     

Che-Yu Kuo  Tsung-Hau Jen  Ying-Shao Hsu 《International Journal of Science Education》2013,35(14):2326-2357

The potential of computer-based assessments for capturing complex learning outcomes has been discussed; however, relatively little is understood about how to leverage such potential for summative and accountability purposes. The aim of this study is to develop and validate a multimedia-based assessment of scientific inquiry abilities (MASIA) to cover a more comprehensive construct of inquiry abilities and target secondary school students in different grades while this potential is leveraged. We implemented five steps derived from the construct modeling approach to design MASIA. During the implementation, multiple sources of evidence were collected in the steps of pilot testing and Rasch modeling to support the validity of MASIA. Particularly, through the participation of 1,066 8th and 11th graders, MASIA showed satisfactory psychometric properties to discriminate students with different levels of inquiry abilities in 101 items in 29 tasks when Rasch models were applied. Additionally, the Wright map indicated that MASIA offered accurate information about students’ inquiry abilities because of the comparability of the distributions of student abilities and item difficulties. The analysis results also suggested that MASIA offered precise measures of inquiry abilities when the components (questioning, experimenting, analyzing, and explaining) were regarded as a coherent construct. Finally, the increased mean difficulty thresholds of item responses along with three performance levels across all sub-abilities supported the alignment between our scoring rubrics and our inquiry framework. Together with other sources of validity in the pilot testing, the results offered evidence to support the validity of MASIA.  相似文献   

New Vision and Challenges in Inquiry-Based Curriculum Change in Singapore     

Mijung Kim  Frederick Toralballa Talaue 《International Journal of Science Education》2013,35(2):289-311

A new primary science syllabus with strong inquiry focus has been implemented in Singapore since 2008. In this study, we attempted to understand how teachers experience the emphasis of inquiry-based curriculum under the current educational conditions that is routined and highly teacher fronted. We invited 50 pre-service and 41 in-service teachers to participate in survey questionnaires and narratives, reflective writings, and group discussions related to science inquiry which formed our data corpus. Data analysis in the form of thematic coding was carried out using NVivo8, with over 80% inter-rater coding agreement level. Three key aspects of teachers’ perceptions of science inquiry were revealed: (1) teachers’ responsibilities as facilitators, (2) privileging content knowledge rather than process skills, and (3) pressure of assessment systems in current educational contexts. These understandings bring out conflicts of inquiry teaching between teacher- and student-centredness, content and process, and curriculum and assessment. Based on these teachers’ perceptions and dilemmas of inquiry science teaching, the visions and challenges of inquiry science curriculum change against assessment requirements are discussed.  相似文献   

质点运动规律的研究性学习     

王建伟 《喀什师范学院学报》2015,(3)

通过大学物理研究性学习的案例———指导学生用计算和绘图的方法对质点运动过程的细节进行了详细探究,辅导学生解决了应用微积分思想和矢量计算的困难,顺利求解了问题,使学生分析问题、处理问题和解决问题的能力得到了提高。  相似文献   

EJS建模软件在中学物理探究式教学中的应用研究     

郭欣悦  贺相春  张筱兰 《中国电化教育》2015,(7)

EJS是一种基于现代教学思想的新型教学软件,其特点是创作过程简单、自动生成代码,界面友好,使学生可以利用特定的可视化模型来学习具体、抽象的概念,并在自己探究、理解、证明的基础上记忆,最终达到灵活运用、解决问题的目的。该文以中学物理教学为例介绍该软件的使用方法及基于EJS支持下的探究式教学的设计和学生开展探究的关键点,并进行实证了分析和反思。基于EJS支持的物理探究式教学可以增强学生对知识的理解,培养学生的问题解决能力,提高学生对相关知识的学习成绩。  相似文献   

反思性讨论对英语教师专业发展的作用     

刘晓齐  郝玫 《佳木斯教育学院学报》2015,(3)

本文以教育叙事的方式,从实证角度考察了某大学四位大学英语教师以团队合作形式进行的反思性写作教学,拟探索反思在教师专业化发展过程中的作用。研究表明,基于教师小组讨论的反思性教学,提升了教师教学技能,使大学英语写作教学更加专业化;同时也改进了写作教学效果,提高了学生的写作能力。本研究最后提出教学研究者如参与反思性讨论并对研究活动进行指导,可促进教师研究能力的发展,使其真正达到专业化的水平。  相似文献   

试论研究性学习评价的价值取向     

张欣 《徐州教育学院学报》2005,20(4):56-59

研究性学习的提出与实施，适应了21世纪对于人的全面发展的要求。而研究性学习评价的价值取向则要定位于学生人格的和谐发展、多元化发展，关注学习过程的体验和学生人文精神的张扬，使学生具有自我发展的能力，实现评价主体与客体的统一。  相似文献