Teaching Science at University

Conceptual Change

Understanding scientific concepts is the core of learning science, but often our pre-instructional conceptions act as barriers to reach an appropriate understanding. In this module we will show how to guide students from their everyday conceptions to scientific ones. You will learn how to use your students’ pre-conceptions not as obstacles but as starting points for teaching science. We will show you some methods for a quick assessment of your students’ conceptions. We look at strategies how we can change our students’ conceptions and how we can help your students to change their ideas. Finally we consider how you as a teacher can foster student engagement in class. At the end of the second week you should be able to address the pre- instructional conceptions of your students in your teaching.

Teaching with analogies

This week we would like to show how invisible concepts become visible. In everyday life we learn so many things by comparing and contrasting. From research we know that the use of analogies and metaphors are important features in the scientific endeavor, and their use in teaching science seems a natural extension. We raise the question whether analogies are just excellent communication tools or if they can generate new knowledge. What do the majority of students really understand when analogies are used to explain abstract and difficult ideas such as molecular structures, diffusion, and plate tectonics? We show that It is important to consider students’ personal constructions since no student enters the lecture hall as “tabula rasa.” Science classrooms are common settings in which analogies are used to enhance concept learning; therefore, improving the way analogies are used in science education has important teaching and learning consequences. At the end of the third week you should be able to choose good analogies for teaching science and implement them fruitfully.

(Re-)Frame your science teaching

This week we want to show you how we can frame our science teaching to increase interest, motivation, and understanding of the students. In the first lesson we ask how the framing of science teaching can help students see the relevance of science for society. We look at problems from everyday life and their potential to foster students understanding of science. Activating our students is one key to reducing failure rates in our classrooms. We look how to design a new course by setting the goals our students have to achieve and how to foster learning when supervising a thesis. Finally we look how to communicate risk and uncertainty in an appropriate way to foster understanding. At the end of this week you should be able to frame your science teaching to make it relevant for your students.

Teaching science in a lab or field

This week we focus on improving students’ learning in a lab or in the field. In the first lesson we show you how to design a lab class, then we focus on delivering a lab class. We show you how you can use design principles (known as “gestalt principles”) to present experiments in a manner which is easy for your students to understand. Then we look at a model on students’ competences on experimentation that you can use to track the development of your students’ conceptual development. From research we know that students often hold inadequate conceptions about the nature of science and the scientific endeavor. We show you how you can address these conceptions to enable your students to understand the meaning of experiments, models, and theories in science. Finally we focus on the role of models in science education. We look at a model for model competence you can use to analyse where your students stand and to train different dimensions of dealing with models. At the end of this week you should be able to design a lab class that improves the inquiry skills of your students.