Database of Publications

Date: 2014.04.03

Posted by Miroslav Prokša (Slovakia)

Message: Publication describes methods and techniques of teaching methods - team work, self-study, information recapitulation, ICT project implementation, student assessment and self-assessment, problem solving, project learning, jig-saw, colour carousel, I know, I know, I remember, home experiments, acrostic poems, non-traditional memory game etc.), All this teaching are mostly nontraditional methods which can be used both in school and in -school learning and offers many ideas for motivating students.The loss of interest and motivation seems to be the most serious problem when teaching Chemistry at school. Chemistry needs to be attractively presented by introducing everyday situations. What is very interesting that publication shows a models where the pupils use all available information sources to discover and learn about new topics. The teacher is not seen as the central character of this education model. The pupils are to seek their own information and their own solutions to problems. Pupils get the opportunity to put what they learn into practice. The suggestions in this publication could be useful to any teachers who are willing to upgrade their methods of teaching to stimulate the interest of the young people. Publication is useful for primary and secondary schoolsl. The methodology of active learning and discovery based learning are extremly impostant for teaching chemistry and publication offers some interesting ideas for the implementation of these methodologies.

Date: 2014.03.30

Posted by Radka Krasteva (Bulgaria)

Message: The post describes interesting methods and techniques of teaching such as: team work, self-study, information recapitulation, ICT project implementation, student assessment and self-assessment, problem solving. It is important because it shares valuable experience in motivating the students to study the subject. By taking active participation in the classroom the students not only enjoy themselves but also do better in their studies. The loss of interest seems to be the most serious problem when teaching Chemistry at school. The subject needs to be attractively presented by introducing everyday situations. I find interesting the fact that the author suggests using role play in the classroom, mind mapping, literature approaches, crossword puzzles, recording home-conducted experiments with non-expensive and user friendly substances and playing the video in front of the class. By borrowing these ideas a teacher will be able to enhance students’ creativity, cognitive abilities, communication and social skills and to stimulate their active participation by giving them extra tasks. In my opinion the suggestions in the article could be useful to any teachers who are willing to upgrade their methods of teaching to stimulate the interest of the young people. In order to do so they will have to spend more time for planning, preparation and assisting the students in their classroom activities. I intend to implement some of the suggested good practices myself.

Date: 2014.03.23

Posted by Grace Kenny (Ireland)

Message: This was a project funded by the EU. It is based on the idea that when the pupils learn by being active their interest levels are heightened in the subject. It went forward on the basis that children these days have lots of different types of information sources available to them, so the simple talk and chalk method proves ineffective in capturing their attention.

The main objective was to provide educational material and show that chemistry can contribute to the development of reading literacy and that students can learn independently. That students can obtain the necessary information related to chemical problems from different information sources (professional literature , Internet) and use multimedia teaching materials . Teaching chemistry using active learning methods, contributes significantly to the formation and development of logical, critical and creative thinking of students, as well as the adoption of important manual skills.

It was extremely difficult to get a good translation of this publication in English. This was unfortunate as it appeared to be an extremely interesting paper, full of active learning ideas for the chemistry lesson. The publication described several active learning teaching strategies( project learning, jig-saw, colour carousel, I know, I know, I remember, home experiments, acrostic poems, non-traditional memory game etc.), some of which, may not have been traditionally placed in a chemistry / science lesson (e.g. use of acrostic poems), and from what I could gather from the translation I had, all the active learning ideas described worked very well in securing and maintaining pupils interest in chemistry class.
I think this publication is relevant as it goes through, in detail, a list of active learning teaching strategies and offers evidence of them being implemented successfully in chemistry lessons.
The publication suggests that factors such as teachers not having being trained specifically in “active learning methodologies” should not be a barrier. It presents the methodologies as easy to u se methods, implementable by any teacher, who has sufficient knowledge of the chemistry curriculum.
This publication shows a model where the pupils use all available information sources to discover and learn about new topics. The teacher is not seen as the central character of this education model. The pupils are to seek their own information and their own solutions to questions/ problems. Pupils get the opportunity to put what they learn into practice. Thus the use of technology is inherent in this model, and will be coming from the pupils themselves rather than the teacher.
The method presented here, of teaching chemistry through active learning methodologies, is ideal for allowing students at second level to keep up to date with the most recent findings in the field of chemistry, as the pupils themselves will be sourcing a lot of their own information via the Internet and publications accessed online. Therefore again, as above, it is the pupils themselves ensuring they keep up to date with the latest advances in chemistry, rather than them relying on the teacher to deliver new information on topics. This also allows for more informed and interested discussions in class on the latest advances in chemistry.
ICT is inherent in the model described in this publication.
I feel this publication is useful at both primary and secondary school level. The methodology of active learning and discovery based learning already underpins the curriculum at primary level, but I feel this article offers some interesting ideas for the implementation of these methodologies. However if this publication is to prove useful to schools in the E.U. then proper translations will have to be made available.

Date: 2014.02.23

Posted by Krasimira Tomeva (Bulgaria)

Message: The paper describes nontraditional methods which can be used both in school and in -school learning. Presents and offers many ideas for motivating students. Offers innovative methods to activate and increase interest in chemistry. Offers opportunities for teamwork and use of ICT in teaching and learning. Various activities that are presented in this report combine and are aimed at the formation of different competencies of the students. Allow to break traditional methods and to make chemistry lessons more interesting and young people to be more motivated to learn. Developed activities for individual classes. It\'s great that these activities are detailed and examples are given. It enables the use of ICT and interactive whiteboard. Theme of the publication is very timely and useful because it provides a number of methods and approaches to active learning and teaching. Students are encouraged to interpret information and develop different skills

Interestingly presents the main steps in learning strategies, use of worksheets, projects in the form of seminars, presentations, preparation of presentation materials and finished products , group projects , experiments and concepts maps , diagrams. Overall, the report offered many activities important to the initiative of the students. Proposed activities are learning by doing, learning by searching and other unconventional and catchy activities. Discussed methods can be used not only by chemistry teachers. The proposed ideas can be used in lessons in other subject areas. Educators can use them in different ways according to the objectives. Teachers of different subjects can implement differently proposed ideas refracted through their vision and specifics of the science.
I think the information in this publication is very useful. It shows a successful educational practice with great relevance for educators concerned about the future of their students