Back
Department of Development, Belgrade
GIREP Seminar
2003
This paper deals with a research on teaching and learning activates of young children based on the viewpoint that children are curios and interested in activities related to discovering physical phenomena. The aim of the research was to find out how such activities could be improved and developed.
The teaching and learning activities presented in this paper are based on the results obtained after several years of study of children’s comprehension of physical phenomena as well as on the experience in selecting contents for experiments and their adjustment to preschool and elementary school children. The selected materials were enriched from the contact with children. Their questions and answers stimulated us to improve the design of the experiments.
Various physical phenomena were selected for teaching through discovery. This approach to the subject can be called “discovery teaching/learning”. Attention was paid both to the presentation of every experiment, keeping in mind the complexity of the phenomenon, on one hand, and to children’s ability to understand them, on the other.
In recent times the role of the teacher is in the focus of attention. A teacher, especially a teacher of natural sciences, is not expected to teach by giving lectures. Teaching is a mutual process of teacher and pupil that helps the child construct knowledge from within. Discussions about teacher titular and/or mediator have contributed to the idea that the relationship between a teacher and a pupil should be a relationship of partnership. The teacher participates in an experiment as a partner of the child. They put questions together and together try to get answers from nature. Unobtrusive help and stimulation from the teacher during experiments have great importance for the development of initial motivation of the child and his/her interest in natural sciences. Teacher’s support is indispensable for the development of logical and abstract thinking. The teacher helps and guides the child to observe connections between cause and effect, which is essential for understanding of natural phenomena.” Facts are important, but the younger the students are, the more important it is to learn the process of science”, stated Dr Leon Lederman Nobel Prize Laureate.
A child should be treated as a young researcher. We hope our research and a series of experiments for discovering natural phenomena we offer is a contribution in finding ways how to meet this demand.