Module 6: KDC SABK Unit 7: Science Teaching and Learning Strategies

Topic 2: The Teaching of Science

2.1 Inquiry-Discovery Strategy

In science, children are being encouraged to be the discoverers of the nature of things.
Children need to be engaged in ‘real experimentation’ and discovering things by
themselves. Active participation of children in science lessons is possible through the
use of inquiry and discovery strategy in teaching.

Inquiry-discovery emphasises learning through experiences. Inquiry generally means

to find information, to question and to investigate a phenomenon that occurs in the
environment. Discovery is the main characteristic of inquiry. Learning through
discovery occurs when the main concepts and principles of science are investigated
and discovered by students themselves. Through activities such as experiments,
students investigate a phenomenon and draw conclusions by themselves. Teachers
then lead students to understand the science concepts through the results of the
inquiry. Thinking skills and scientific skills are thus developed further during the inquiry
process.

Below are some suggestions that a science teacher can use to lead and motivate the
students in the inquiry activities:

1. Ask open-ended and high level questions, solicit and accept divergent
responses, and probes and redirects;
2. Avoid telling answers or suggesting what students must do next; instead, act
only as a clarifier or facilitator;
3. Encourage and reinforce your students in taking more responsibility for making
learning discoveries;
4. Be supportive of their responses, suggestions, and deferring views and
interpretations, but insist that they back up their comments with logical
evidence;
5. Teach students how to phrase or write the concepts, principles or
generalization that they are forming;
6. Encourage them to act on current verified “best answer”, understanding that
additional evidence may lead to new “best answer”;
7. Teach and encourage students to distinguish between “healthy “ and “negative”
skepticism;
8. Encourage student-student interaction and sharing by stressing support and
cooperation rather than competition;
9. Point out any errors in logic, misuse of inferences or generalizations that are
too broad but allow your students to make their own correction as far as
possible, for if you supply corrections, you may defeat the purpose of inquiry;
10. Be sure to identify errors and verify conclusions and generalizations in non-
threatening ways.

Discovery is the mental process of assimilating concepts and principles. Discovery

processes include:

• Observing
• Classifying
• Measuring
• Predicting
• Describing
• Inferring

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A lesson can range from free discovery where the teacher’s role is minimal at one end
to pure expository learning where the teacher’s role is maximum at the other. In
between this expository-pure discovery continuum lies guided discovery. When both
rule and solutions are given, the teaching method is thoroughly expository; when
neither is given, it is pure discovery.

Teaching EXPOSITION (teacher GUIDED DISCOVERY EXPOLARION OR FREE

strategy lectures, instructs, DISCOVERY(INQUIRY)
demonstrates)

Teacher Active/Dominant Active/facilitator Facilitator

role

Student Passive or active Active Active

role

Source: Carin, A. & Sund, R. (1989). Teaching Science Through discovery (6th Edition). Pp. 91.

Figure 11: Dominance/passivity of science-teaching methods

Guided discovery science teaching/learning methods blend teacher-centered and

student-centered techniques. The younger the children, the more you must present
information and guide them; the older the children, the less you present, the more they
will initiate work with you as a facilitator, resource person, and encourager. Guided
discovery helps students to acquire knowledge on their own. Guided discovery is not
restricted to finding something entirely new to the world such as an invention or theory.
It is a matter of internally rearranging data so that the students can go beyond the data
to form new concepts. Guided discovery involves finding the meanings, organization,
and structure of ideas.

Inquiry should not be confused with discovery. Discovery assumes a realist or logical
approach to the world which is necessarily present in inquiry. Inquiry tends to imply a
constructionist approach to teaching science. Inquiry is open-ended and on-going.
Discovery concentrates upon closure on some important process, fact, principle or law
which is required by the science syllabus.

With the inquiry-discovery strategy in mind, the use of a variety of teaching and
learning methods can enhance students’ interest in science. Science lessons that are
not interesting will not motivate students to learn and subsequently will affect their
performance. The choice of teaching methods should be based on the curriculum
content, students’ abilities, students’ repertoire of intelligences, and the availability of
resources and infrastructure. Different teaching and learning activities should be
planned to cater for students with different learning styles and intelligences.

The following are brief descriptions of some teaching and learning methods which can
be used by a science teacher in the teaching of primary school science:

Experimentation
An experiment is a method commonly used in science lessons. In experiments,
students test hypotheses through investigations to discover specific science concepts
and principles. Conducting an experiment involves thinking skills, scientific skills, and
manipulative skills. In a teaching, besides guiding students to carry out experiments,
where appropriate, teachers should provide students with the opportunities to design

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their own experiments. This involves students drawing up plans as to how to conduct
experiments, how to measure and analyse data, and how to present the results of their
experiment.

Simulation
In simulation, an activity that resembles the actual situation is carried out. Examples of
simulation are role-play, games and the use of models. In role-play, students play out
a particular role based on certain pre-determined conditions. Games require
procedures that need to be followed. Students play games in order to learn a particular
principle or to understand the process of decision-making. Models are used to
represent objects or actual situations so that students can visualise the said objects or
situations and thus understand the concepts and principles to be learned.

Project
A project is a learning activity that is generally undertaken by an individual or a group
of students to achieve a particular learning objective. A project generally requires
several lessons to complete. The outcome of the project either in the form of a report,
an artefact or in other forms needs to be presented to the teacher and other students.
Project work promotes the development of problem-solving skills, time management
skills, and independent learning.

Field Studies
The learning of science is not limited to activities carried out in the school compound.
Learning of science can be enhanced through the use of external resources such as
zoos, museums, science centres, research institutes, mangrove swamps, and
factories. Visits to these places make the learning of science more interesting,
meaningful and effective. To optimise learning opportunities, visits need to be carefully
planned. Students may be involved in the planning process and specific educational
tasks should be assigned during the visit. No educational visit is complete without a
post-visit discussion.

2.2 Semester and Weekly Lesson Plan

Teaching is more than telling. Effective teaching requires a great deal of thought,
preparation, and design. At the beginning of the school term, you will need to do a
semester lesson plan to cover the entire science curriculum. Semester lesson plan
would specify the content for the duration. It also devise weekly table for the whole
semester. A good semester lesson plan should contain the following headings:
Semester, Number of Weeks, Topic and Remarks. In order to plan out the semester
lesson plan, you will need the Science syllabus, a calendar, a school calendar and
your school timetable. Since the school session is made up of 2 semesters, each
semester lesson plan could look something like this:

Week/date Topic Strategy/activity Remarks

1 Parts of the body Hands on activities Teaching
5/1 – 9/1 to observe parts of courseware will be
the body integrated into the
lesson
2
12/1 – 16/1

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Topics for each week in the semester lesson plan is then further detailed in the weekly
lesson plan according to the following format:

Days and Time Topics/ Learning Teaching and Teaching and

Objectives Learning Methods Learning Resources

2.3 Daily Lesson Plan based on Needham’s 5-Phase Constructivism

Model

From the weekly lesson plan, the lesson for each day is then planned. In the daily
lesson plan, a teacher should plan appropriate activities that suit the
purpose of each phase in the Needham’s 5-Phase Constructivism Model.
The format of such a lesson plan is shown below:

Format of a lesson plan based upon Needham’s 5-Phase Constructivism Model

Date:
Time:
Class:
Number of pupils:
Subject:

Learning Theme:

Learning Outcomes:

Pre-requisite knowledge:

Scientific/Thinking Skills:

Scientific/Noble Values:

Learning aids and materials:

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Phase/Time Contents Teaching & Learning Activities Remarks

Orientation
( minutes)

Eliciting of
Ideas
( minutes)

Restructuring
of Ideas
( minutes)

Application
( minutes)

Reflection
( minutes)

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