Teaching Aims - Essentials of Chemical Education - page 85

Didactical approaches . Problems can be presented during the lessons in many
ways. Therefore, it is possible to vary the different didactical approaches or to
combine them. The following are the main approaches, which are described briefly:

Term oriented New scientific terms of the structure of chemistry are introduced

Procedure oriented The way of gaining knowledge by proving hypothesis is shown

Structure oriented Chemical structure of matter is in the center of teaching

History oriented History of science is taken as a basis

Application oriented Applications of student's environment and everyday life

Environment oriented Environmental pollution of water or air and protection

Activity oriented Students' activities and hands-on experiments

Project oriented Interdisciplinarity, activity orientation, cooperation

Problem-oriented lessons are often added to this list. However, problem orienta-
tion can only be an umbrella term for all approaches, since every lesson should have
a “problem” in the center. It should not always be the teacher, who presents the
problem, but also the student, the experiment, or the structural model - true
motivation and interest can be awaken and maintained.
The different didactical approaches will be explained with examples from chem-
istry lessons and connected to teaching and social methods. These will be listed
beforehand. Whereas the organizational aspect of teaching is in the spotlight of
teaching methods, the communicative aspect is in the spotlight of social methods.
Teaching methods . Teacher-centered teaching is the best known and most
common, but also the most controversial teaching method: “international research
on school quality agrees that the rigid teacher-centred method is the least favorable
for the student” [ 35 ]. Therefore, other teaching methods should be favored and are
expected in lessons, when teacher students conduct their assessed teaching lessons
at the end of their education:

- Problem solving: a single problem, experiment, or structural model starts the
lecture
- Inquiry learning: students have to discover a rule or a law after observing
experiments
- Differentiated learning: students are learning by themselves in different learning
groups
- Programmed learning: learning a special topic by a computer program
- Workshop: learning by hands-on activities supervised through an expert
- Internship: learning from professionals outside of schools in a company or
factory
- Excursion: going outside the school and learning in nature, in companies or
factories

Social methods . The following forms of communication between teacher and
students can be distinguished: teacher lecture, student lecture, teacher demonstra-
tion, student demonstration, teacher-class dialogue, discussion, group work, pair
work, individual work, silent work, role play, experimental game, simulation,