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Asked by ogoldfinch09 to Laura, Lena, Sean on 21 Mar 2012.
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Lena Ciric answered on 21 Mar 2012:
Another excellent question. It’s been a while since I was at school, so I don’t know how it’s taught these days. I remember enjoying the practicals and learning about all the subjects, but I don’t really remember being taught the scientific principles. Perhaps I wasn’t listening. The whole idea about how to think about things logically, to examine the evidence critically and to design controlled experiments didn’t seem to be taught. I seem to remember having to memorise a lot of stuff but not actually having to think about much. Obviously, we need to learn about what we know so far so we can move forward, though.
What do you think? I’d be really interested to hear.
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Sean Murphy answered on 21 Mar 2012:
I agree with much of what Lena said. I’m not sure how it is being taught at the moment, but I think that the focus should be teaching people to be curious about the world around them, helping them to ask the right questions about the world, and then how to use correct methods to come up with answers to these questions. I too remember having to memorize a whole bunch of unless things in school, and I forgot most of this. Rather than teaching people to memorize and repeat, we need to teach people how to learn, and enjoy doing it!
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Laura Waters answered on 21 Mar 2012:
Are you enjoying science? If the answer is no then we are not teaching it right! I had great teachers and that made me love science so I hope you have some too!
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Laura Waters answered on 21 Mar 2012:
Enjoying science? If the answer is no then we are not teaching it right! I had great teachers and that made me love science so I hope you have some too!
Comments
ogoldfinch09 commented on :
We are not taught to inquire, we are given information on the topics that will come up in exams with practicals to help us understand them but we do little of designing investigations, forming hypotheses and independent work. Science is all about discovery and application, we are taught about neither of these; only the blunt truths about certain aspects of biology, physics and chemistry.
Lena commented on :
I guess the argument is that you need to have a good base knowledge first. But it’s difficult to enjoy just cramming information into your head. I had no idea what it was like to actually be a scientist when I was at school. The practice is much much more interesting than the theory.
ogoldfinch09 commented on :
It is odd how everyone looks forward to doing a practical after a few lessons of theory and then everyone finds it just as boring. The practicals are mostly used to support what we have been told, they are used as evidence but they do not, despite what the teacher thinks, help us to understand what actually happens; if I see someone driving a car I don’t automatically know how a car works.