Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
9.11.1 Evaluation by the Teachers
One might say that the time needed for this teaching unit is very high, and that there
is not enough time for it in normal chemistry classes. But this provokes the
question: What do we want to achieve in a chemistry class? The involved teachers
at least unanimously had the opinion that the high time need definitely paid off. The
quality of the initiated learning processes, the interconnection of contents and
methods, as well as the experimental discovery and the profound understanding
of the students led to this opinion.
The teachers expressed the following opinions in the concluding discussion,
which was recorded on tape [
2
]:
- “In the beginning there was a lot of work (preparation of solutions,
testing of
experiments). But once you get into it, it works like clockwork.”
- “The motivation was generally good, even in theory phases, this is unusual.”
- “High motivation by student experiments and by independent work.”
- “The students liked working without prior knowledge and some of them were even
enthusiastic to feel successful for the first time in their chemistry class.”
- “Good and less good students were well integrated in the groups. Even students without
prior knowledge had a chance, and even very quiet students put their hands up.”
- “28 out of 36 students continued chemistry class. That are a lot more students than last
year. Obviously the concept worked very well.”
- “I would like to do this again and I am happy that I got to know another concept. I had a
lot of fun.”
9.11.2 Evaluation by the Students
How did the 58 students (26 boys and 32 girls) evaluate the PIN-Concept?
The students were asked the following questions about every step after each of
the three sections (see Table
9.6
). The answers had to be selected on a five-point
scale:
- How much did you understand in this step?
- How well could you follow in this step?
- How interesting did you find this step?
The results of this questionnaire will be explained exemplarily using the steps
1.1 and 2.2 and 3.2 (see Table
9.6
). In the Tables 9.6-9.8, the percentage of students
that ticked the respective category is presented.
Table
9.6
shows that the three steps were evaluated very positively. On average
about 70% of students said that they found these steps interesting or even very
interesting; they understood much or very much and they could follow well or very
well.
To get a general idea of the evaluation of all 11 steps by the students, a number
between +2 and
2 was assigned to every category. For example:
very much (+2), much (+1), middle (0), not so much (
1), little (
2).
