Tips for teachers in science teaching

How to Teach Science?

However best the textbook may be made, the key factor for effective teaching is the method adopted by the teacher to teach it. The teaching learning activities designed by the teacher to achieve the targeted academic standards affect the learning process of the children. Hence, they should be designed in such a way that they make learning science an enjoyable activity. Let us see what a teacher should do in teaching a lesson and what a student should do in learning it.

What should the teacher do before teaching a lesson?

The teacher should:

· Identify the targeted academic standards of the unit

· Get ready to conduct the activities given for the achievement of the targeted

   academic standards and also develop some supplementary activities if required.

· Collect or ask children to collect required information/material to conduct the

   activities.

· Collect additional information through internet and reference books and should be ready with good understanding of the concepts.

· Prepare required worksheets, tables, information, etc., related to experiments or field visits. S/he should identify the information centres, areas and people and be ready with phone numbers and mail addresses. Permissions from appropriate authorities should also be obtained before hand.

· Develop interesting problems / thought provoking questions that motivate children to learn the lesson

· Allocate some periods (while allocating periods for the unit) for the practice session given towards the end of the unit.

What should the teacher do / bear in mind while teaching a lesson?

The teacher should:

· Conduct the class in such a way that children participate in all the activities in the lesson voluntarily and happily with a lot of interest.

· Give priority to simple experiments, activities, field visits, etc., which develop thinking skills and observation skills in children.

· Link the concepts in the lesson with the real life situations / events.

· Bear in mind the following while teaching a lesson

The teacher should:

- Write the name of the lesson on the blackboard and let children do mind-mapping.

- Make children read individually the introduction(story, situation, question) of the unit.

- Conduct discussion on the items given in introduction through probing questions.

- Make children envisage solutions to the problems by encouraging them to read and discuss the activities.

- Encourage children to do activities on their own to check the validity of their assumptions. The results of such activities should also be discussed.

- Discuss the tables or worksheets meant for the collection of data/material and give children opportunities to fill them in individually.

- Conduct discussion among children based on the analysis of the tables so as to enable them to make conclusions.

- Encourage children to draw pictures, to mark the parts, to discuss what each part does, to elaborate a process, etc., wherever required.

- Make children develop models / working models, wherever necessary, and encourage them to exhibit them. The required materials for this can be supplied by the teacher, or, the children can be asked to collect them.

- Make children read sections like ‘Think and Discuss’, ‘Do You Know’,

‘annexure’, ‘ stories’, etc., and discuss their contents enabling them understand and appreciate science concepts

- See that children talk and elaborate the key words and concepts

- Discuss with children each item under ‘What we have Learnt’

- Encourage children to think, participate voluntarily and to respond individually to the items given under the heading ‘Improve Your Learning’. The projects can be given as a group work and enough time should be given to do them. The teacher should cooperate with the children by giving suggestions, guidance and by giving additional information through experiments and other things

- Use the information given in the annexure according to the situation

What should the teacher do after teaching a lesson?

The teacher should:

· See that children do the activities and projects given at the end of the lesson

· See that children collect information related to the lesson from library, magazines, and their surroundings

· Record children’s thoughts, interesting things, doubts, etc., related to various concepts of the lesson

· See that the above items are exhibited on the wall magazine

· Give suitable instructions to children so as to enable them to apply what was learnt to real life situations

· Identify the concepts that children did not understand, and develop suitable activities to enable them learn those concepts

· See that all children achieve the targeted academic standards

What steps should be followed while teaching a lesson?

To achieve the targeted academic standards in science, children should be made partners in learning activities. Process skills and scientific thinking should be developed in them by motivating them. They should be motivated towards learning the lesson by asking them some probing questions. Then they should be encouraged to do mind mapping.

Simple experiments, activities and projects should be conducted to help them have a good understanding of the concepts. Science concepts should be linked with the real life situations and events. Let us see what steps are to be followed while teaching a lesson.

Steps:

1. Mind mapping – Probing Questions

A. Greeting

B. Mind mapping

C. Motivating/Probing questions

2. Reading the textbook – Recognising the key words

A. Reading the lesson – recognizing the key words

B. Discussion in groups, teacher’s explanation on the board

C. Motivating children to ask questions on the lesson

3. Comprehension of concepts – Doing Activities – Discussion

4. Demonstration – Discussion

5. Conclusion – Evaluation

The importance of the lesson, the objectives of the lesson or the targeted academic standards of the lesson should be discussed only in the first period.

Targeted Academic standards: Efforts should be made to achieve the seven academic standards specified for science, so the objectives should be decided keeping in view the components the lesson focuses on. Importance of the lesson: The importance of the lesson should be made clear to children answering the questions ‘Why should they learn this lesson?’ and What use is it to them?’ This helps children understand why they are learning that lesson.

1. Mind mapping:

The teacher should write the title of the lesson on the blackboard and invite the children’s concepts, opinions, examples, characteristics, properties, etc. S/he should ask probing questions, make children think about the key concepts of the lesson and contribute to mind mapping through interaction. The teacher should motivate children and get them ready to learn the lesson through this activity

2. Reading the textbook – Recognizing the key words

The teacher should ask children to read that part of the lesson which is to be taught in that period according to the syllabus. As they read the lesson, the teacher should make them identify difficult to understand new concepts and terms, write them on the blackboard and encourage children to discuss them. S/he can explain wherever necessary.

3. Comprehension of concepts – Doing Activities – Discussion

Children have to ask a lot of question to understand the concepts of the lesson and to clear their doubts. They have to make assumptions/hypotheses to solve problems and then do experiments to verify whether they are valid or not. They have to take up projects that call for process skills in collection as well as analysis of information.

Children should express their comprehension of the concepts in a multiplicity of

ways: by drawing pictures and marking the parts, by drawing the arrangement of apparatus in the experiment and describing the process, by drawing flowcharts and pictures showing processes and observations, and by making models, alternative apparatus / improvised apparatus.

These should be used to enable children to develop appreciation towards scientific principles, real life situations, scientific inventions / discoveries, recognize the importance of biodiversity and an awareness to protect the environment. The activities should help children apply the scientific knowledge acquired to real life situations. To make children comprehend concepts of the lesson, the following activities should be conducted in the classroom:

1. Experiments

2. Projects and field visits

3. Data collection and tabulation

4. Analysis of the data and making conclusions

5. Conduct of interview, quiz, seminar, symposiums

6. Writing reports on the observations/experiments conducted

7. Drawing pictures / graphs related to observations/experiments

8. Drawing diagrams, marking the parts and explaining

9. Making models

10. Reading stories, historical events, researches

11. Making posters, logos, cartoon and writing essays, songs, stories

12. Conduct of wall magazine, children’s diary, school magazine, theatre day, meeting of the cultural society (Note: The teachers should collect and get ready before hand with all apparatus, tools and other things required to conduct activities)

4. Demonstration – Discussion

Children participate in various activities to comprehend the concepts. They also design/develop/prepare a number of items. All these items should be discussed and displayed in the classroom. The main points should be written on the blackboard and children’s work should be analyzed based on them. A number of thought provoking questions that help to do analysis and discussion should be written on the blackboard.

5. Conclusion – Evaluation

Towards the end of the lesson, the teacher should give scope for children to revise what they have learnt in the unit. This can be done in many ways. S/he can revise and conclude herself/himself or ask a student to do it individually. Alternatively, she /he can ask children to take turns and revise the items one by one.

Evaluation should be done in two ways – as an intricate part of the teaching learning process and at the end of the lesson.

· Evaluation should give scope for a wide variety of responses /answers

· The activities under the headings ‘Discuss in groups’, ‘write what you have

observed’, ‘Fill the table’, etc. should be done as integral part of lesson (Formative Assessment) which means teaching a lesson and evaluation go hand in hand.

· Evaluation should be done according to the situation but not according to a fixed schedule.

· Children should be asked to give their opinions and conceptual understanding and explain.

· The contents under the heading ‘What we have learnt’ regarding the lesson taught should be discussed in groups. Then children should be asked to write

their responses individually.

· The children should be asked to do the contents under ‘Improve your learning’

individually.

· The notebooks and worksheets of children should be checked/verified either by the teacher or by the other students.

· The teacher should design/develop some activities for homework.