Success as a science teacher
Preben Hartmann-Petersen
Dr Preben Hartmann-Petersen is one of the authors of the newly published
Sasol Science and Technology Resource, previously reviewed at Science in Africa.
Dr Hartmann-Petersen shares some of his experience and advice as a successful
science teacher. He has taught science in both Tanzania and Botswana and is now
based in Denmark.
During my almost seven years of teaching science subjects to secondary school students in Africa (Tanzania and Botswana) and teaching chemistry and applied laboratory techniques for several years to tertiary students in Denmark, I have in class and in staff room seen many common features and heard many joint declarations convincing me that we do more or less the same in the classroom and face more or less the same problems in our every day 'struggle' to get through to the students no matter where in the world we teach.
This is further confirmed when one reads various magazines dealing with science education such as 'Journal of Chemical Education' published by the Division of Chemical Education of the American Chemical Society and from which some of the below statements are repeated.
The following is an attempt to convey a few of my observations and thoughts to colleagues in South Africa.
The teaching of science subjects to secondary school students and college and university freshmen is often regarded as a difficult task.
Even a well-prepared and well-structured teacher experiences that he/she is sometimes poorly received and unappreciated by the students.
This may happen because we only apply our own standards to our science teaching, forgetting about the general nature of the students and sometimes forgetting that there is a fundamental difference between theories of teaching and theories of learning.
The former deal with the ways in which the teacher can influence how the students learn and the latter deal with the way in which the students learn.
In other words teaching and learning are not synonymous.
Success as a teacher
Among teachers, it is a well-known fact that it is difficult for students of science subjects to appreciate the various ways in which the subjects are taught.
However, this is quite natural as there is no one single way to do it, but before you expect a lot from your students you must be willing to give a lot of yourself and realize that one has to put a great deal of thought and effort into teaching before you are accepted as a good teacher by the students.
It is also a well-known fact that successful teachers produce successful students, and of course we want to see our students develop into creative thinkers. However, this traditionally has meant being able to solve problems and analyse situations through the proper use of deductive logic which often appears to be achieved by running written tests frequently comprising standard questions that do not involve a great deal of thinking. Learning how to take a science test is not the same as learning science.
In the aforementioned magazine 'Journal of Chemical Education' (vol.78, August 2001) it is stated in an editorial note that we as teachers should be careful to base high-stakes decisions on a single or just a few tests when measuring students' academic success and test-prep books should not be used as textbooks; the latter being much too common in science teaching.
Erroneous grading of a standardized test must be avoided at all costs.
Many students are able to do well in a standardized test about e.g. heat concepts, but often the same students cannot distinguish between such basic concepts as 'heat' and 'temperature', i.e. we have failed to make them understand, but stressed on solving calculation problems because this is what they are usually tested for.
Let us therefore encourage the students to become conceptual thinkers and let us not use the test tool in an uncritical way.
Instead let us inspire our students to evaluate and construct arguments, to make
judgements, to analyse critically what they read, and to appreciate that learning science subjects involves more than learning mere scientific facts, and you may rest assured that fingertip knowledge they will pick up 'along the road'.
Being a successful and respected teacher also involves a kind attitude in class.
How about a cheery greeting upon entering class, delivered in a fashion that the students know you mean it.
The students are all aware of the fact that you are the expert so you don't have to show off your mastery.
Humour and interest in class can dispel the weary, enliven the teaching atmosphere and make difficult concepts easy.
Science and society
Regarding the effect of science on society it is worth while to refer to a statement from the world famous American physicist Robert Andrews Millikan (1868-1953) who was awarded the 1923 Nobel Prize for physics for his work on the elementary electric charge and on the photoelectric effect. Millikan once said: "Modern Society and its applications have produced the most profound and beneficial social changes that the world has ever seen".
This was true 70 years ago and is still true today where some people even talk about (the) subversive science.
Women in science
Despite decades of struggle, women remain a small minority in the scientific community.
Even though biology is a science subject that attracts women in many countries, only a few become professors.
When I ask secondary and tertiary students to mention some famous female scientists, I am lucky if I hear the name Marie Curie (Madame Curie).
We should therefore try to get science subjects to be something girls want to do and try to investigate what is turning women off.
Throughout the centuries, women have for no logical reason been excluded from most aspects of scientifical and political life and we should not accept that there is a woman's way or a man's way to perform scientific research work.
What should, however, be emphasized is the fact that everyone will have to work hard to be a good scientist.
No modern society can afford to exclude women from gaining full access to higher education even though often handicapped by family responsibilities, financial exploitation and sexism.
An answer to this problem could be to get more female science teachers who may influence female pupils in secondary schools and female scientists should of course be paid the same salary as male scientists.
Science teachers must be up-to-date in knowledge
The famous German chemist Robert Wilhelm Bunsen (1811-1899) once said: "A chemist, who is no physicist, is almost valueless" which is true even today - no one can study chemistry with profit unless he/she has a knowledge of various physical methods and concepts and vice versa.
Science teachers are constantly bombarded with articles about new discoveries and new applications which is an additional challenge in our every-day life.
Students read about such progress in science and want a prompt answer to their questions. After it was reported in 1998 that a team of researchers at Harvard University in the USA succeeded in slowing down the speed of light remarkably eventually bringing it to a complete halt in 2000 by sending pulses of light through a very cold cloud of sodium atoms, my students assailed me with questions about this remarkable experiment, forcing me to investigate new areas rather far from chemistry.
Motivation
The ideal teaching situation is one in which a dedicated teacher works with an interested student. However, we know that students do not all have the motivation to do well, but it is a fact that when placed in a stimulating environment surrounded by enthusiastic people, some of those who don't want to learn often change their minds.
It may therefore be necessary to employ new techniques or to revise old techniques in our aim to get through to the students.
Teachers in science subjects such as chemistry, physics and biology are fortunate in that they may offer the students to perform practical experiments. Students who are interested in performing laboratory experiments usually lose the sense of time and, as such, are 'happy' about their quests for understanding, i.e. performing laboratory experiments is good motivation, however, we should not forget that students have different potentials, characteristics and interests because their backgrounds, intelligence, and environments are not alike.
The motivation level may be increased by encouraging questions - the setting of a debate - the running of a contest - performing relevant practical experiments and teaching with lively
methods.
The better students and also many of the less focused students in secondary schools and universities are of course well aware of the fact that their education is the route to a good job, but this is rarely not motivation enough to do well before the examiners.
Computers at home, in school and at work are in many countries already becoming as common and as essential as electric light, however, the computer is not yet smart enough to make the beds, but it may regulate the furnace and the air conditioner and even close the curtains against a winter chill or the warmth of the burning sun.
Computers are dead objects and in the long run boring objects which hopefully will never replace the teacher, but they already are and will moreover still be valuable tools in science teaching and the well-considered use of them is definitely time-saving and in many situations a motivating factor.
The tension between teaching and research
The persistent tension between teaching and research in the postsecondary education system is a problem in many countries.
Teaching is usually not valued as much as research and sometimes it is seen that the more the lecturer spend of his/her time teaching, the lower is the salary simply because the faculty are paid a lower salary if they spend too much time teaching than doing research.
A way out of this is, of course, to give a slight advantage to those who believe that teaching is the primary function of the postsecondary education system.
Some universities now already have or plan to have a professional corps of teachers solely involved in teaching and therefore released of all research duties, however, often one hears that it is essential that the university students are taught by researchers who may pass on their research experience to the students.
I find it doubtful whether this is so important that we often accept poor teaching from brilliant researchers who could spend their time doing better things.
At the end of a higher education it is, however, necessary to bring the researcher and the student in close contact where the researcher acts as a tutor for the student.
Future
In the Western World, the interest among secondary school students for science subjects (especially chemistry, physics and mathematics) is unfortunately declining.
I don't know the actual situation in South Africa, however, maybe we are not good enough to popularize the subjects so they appear attractive to young people.
In my home country, Denmark, the situation in both the private and public sectors is now so desperate that the government seriously considers to request Danish embassies abroad to inform foreign science students who are at the end of their studies and also already trained academics about the good job situation in Denmark, i.e. interested foreign scientists are granted residence and work permits quite easily.
Return to Science Education Page
|
