Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
and distances between the ethanol particles are growing. There is no material between
the particles: the fast movement of particles produces the big volume.
1.3 Teaching Processes: Considering Students' Conceptions
“All teaching should begin with children's experiences - each new experience
children have in a classroom is organized with the aid of existing concepts” [
15
].
“Without explicitly abolishing misconceptions it is not possible to come up with
sustainable scientific concepts” [
16
]. “Lessons should not merely proceed from
ignorance to knowledge but should rather have one set of knowledge replace
another. Chemical education should offer a bridge between students' preconcepts
and today's scientific concepts” [
17
].
These statements make it quite obvious that teachers should not assume students
to enter their classroom with no knowledge or ideas whatsoever. Lessons, which
take not into account that students have existing concepts, usually push them to
barely following the lecture until the next quiz or exam. After that, newly acquired
information will gradually be forgotten: students tend to return to their old and
trusted concepts.
Nowadays, teachers and pedagogy experts agree that one should be aware of
students' ideas before the “bridge can be successfully built between the preconcepts
and the scientific ones” [
17
]. Therefore, an important goal is to allow students to express
their own preconcepts during a lesson or, in the attempt to introduce new subject matter
in a lesson, to let them be aware of inconsistencies regarding their ideas and the up-to-
date scientific explanation. In this way, they can be motivated to overcome these
discrepancies. Only when students feel uncomfortable with their ideas, and realize
that they are not making any progress with their own knowledge they will accept the
teacher's information and thereby build up new cognitive structures.
For the teaching process, it is therefore important to take developmental stages
of the students into account according to:
- Existing discrepancies within students' own explanations
- Inconsistencies between preconcepts and scientific concepts
- Discrepancies between preliminary and correct explanations of experimental
phenomena
- Possibilities of removing misconceptions
- Possibilities of constructing acceptable explanations [
18
]
One should take into consideration especially that, regarding constructivist
theories, it is only possible to change from preconcepts to scientific concepts if
- Individuals are given the chance to construct their own learning structures
- Each student gets the chance to actively learn by themselves
- “Conceptual growth” can occur congruent to Piaget's assimilation principle, or even
- “Conceptual change” can occur congruent to Piaget's accommodation principle [
18
]
