Pedagogia
Enviado por lupiila • 18 de Abril de 2014 • 3.334 Palabras (14 Páginas) • 122 Visitas
Chemistry Teaching—Science or Alchemy?
1996 Brasted Lecture
A. H. Johnstone
Department of Chemistry, Glasgow University, Glasgow G12 8QQ, Scotland
Introduction: Is Chem-Ed Research?
Many of us who work in universities have two main
roles: as researcher and as teacher. The balance between
these varies from one institution to the other, and the approach
to these roles can be very different. Some people see
teaching as a chore which gets
in the way of research, while
others view their teaching as
an exciting, creative, but often
frustrating pursuit. Journals
such as this regularly carry articles
describing some frontier
of chemical research along
with articles about teaching
innovation. Where the two
types of communication differ
is in their overt theoretical
stance. The research papers are copiously referenced to
theories, held beliefs, hypotheses, and objective measurement
and seek to build on and extend what has been done
before. The teaching papers, on the other hand, are full of
assertions, homespun wisdom, and ingenuity, and lack measurement.
I am suggesting that the development of good teaching
and the pursuit of research have (or should have) essentially
the same structure. We need some discipline in our
work to give it a clear focus, to be efficient in time and effort,
and to have a direction that is more often right than
wrong. We also need transferable outcomes that all can
share, to prevent the constant reinvention of fire.
The bulk of this paper is an attempt to do the gathering
together of things we have all been aware of, perhaps
intuitively, and to provide a working model for new research
and development in chemical education. It is an attempt to
systematize what is known into a usable form, which might
save us from confusing our enthusiasms for those of our students
and which will help us to go with the learning process
rather than across it or even against it!
The model draws upon the work of psychologists, educationists,
artificial intelligence workers, and dealers in
common sense.
Constructing a Model of Learning
In common with all living things, we are victims of our
environment, informed by our senses and reactions. However,
we have mechanisms by which we reduce the torrent
of sensory stimuli to manageable proportions, attending to
what seems to be important, interesting, or sensational. In
other words, we have a filtration system that enables us to
ignore a large part of sensory information and focus upon
what we consider to matter. To try to attend to everything
would be an impossibility leading to confusion and breakdown.
We then have to ask how the filter works. It must be
driven by what we already know and understand. Our previous
knowledge, biases, prejudices, preferences, likes and
dislikes, and beliefs must all play a part. How else would
we anticipate and recognize the familiar or be caught out
by a surprise?
Although in any one country or culture much of this
will be held in common, each individual will have a unique
set of held knowledge and beliefs that mark us out as separate
people and personalities.
Not only do we sense selectively, we also add, from experience,
to our sensory information
and “fill out” an otherwise
incomplete sensory experience.
Take a look at Figure
1. Is it just a lot of meaningless
blots? Try turning the
page upside down. What now?
The image is poor, but its
meaning is clearly being
supplemented by what you already
know and “filled out” to
a meaningful thing.
Somewhere in our heads
is a vast store of experience
and knowledge, one function
of which is to activate and
control our perceptual filter.
Stop and give some thought to
the implication of this for
teaching and learning. You
may be the provider of stimuli
during teaching, but how does
the
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