Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
Some teachers and parents think they can motivate young students with the
pressures of school grades, as they see it as the only way to get them to learn. They
do not see that students, based on this short lasting extrinsic motivation, only learn
until the next test, for the reward from teachers or parents, to reach the target class.
After that they forget everything: a desired, long-term learning does not take place!
An important task of the teacher is to consider other measures which encourage
students to learn without forcing them. The creativity of teachers is not limited to
prepare lessons, to motivate students over a longer period, so that intrinsic motiva-
tion will come up. The basic question of any teaching methodology in this regard is
what options are possible to motivate intrinsically and inspire sustained interest in
the subject.
In the natural sciences it is relatively easy to motivate through natural and
laboratory phenomena and to kindle curiosity and interest in students. If the
short-term interest in certain contexts comes to a longer period of interest, you
lead the students “from situational to individual interest” [
1
]. In this way you can
achieve substantive motivation for longer periods and do not need to motivate
extrinsically with praise and blame, good or bad grades.
Interest will unfold easier in favor of a cognitive conflict, if it is accompanied by
positive emotions: one seeks to establish consistency between affection and cogni-
tion [
2
]. So positive emotions are necessary to develop long-term motivation and
will cause positive attitudes towards the involved subject. In this context, the
chemistry teacher does not have difficulties: demonstration experiments and those
done by the students themselves, structural models on display and those built by the
students themselves evoke positive emotions in most cases and are well suited to
produce the desired long-term intrinsic motivation. The following discussion will
explain this in detail with many examples.
2.1 Learner: Development, Attitudes, and Preconcepts
The basic question in this regard of teaching chemistry is firstly to reflect on the
conditions, which must be observed to build up the desired intrinsic motivation:
- State of the intellectual development of learners
- Present attitudes to chemistry or chemistry lessons
- Preconcepts on natural or laboratory phenomena
Development
. According to the theory of Piaget [
3
], secondary school students
are at the stage of concrete or formal operations of thought (see also Sect. 3.2) in
terms of their cognitive skills. The adopted age limits, however, may vary signifi-
cantly in this regard: researchers found that only 25% of the 16-year-old students of
grade 10 achieve the stage of formal operations [
3
].
Measures to motivate must address such development stages. Accordingly, for
young students at the stage of concrete operations special phenomena should be
preferred. Some examples: students can examine the constant melting temperature
