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Does all practical work need to have a real-life context?
With all the logistical and safety considerations around practical work, it is all too easy for our goal as a teacher to focus solely on all students completing the practical and clearing up by the end of the lesson. Time spent both before and after the practical is crucial for students to be able to see a point to what they are doing in the lesson. As well as improving practical skills and demonstrating the scientific method, practical work should help students to understand the theory and link to their prior knowledge. If we can find a way to relate the subject matter to their everyday life then they are more likely to see the science as relevant to them.
Are contexts obvious to students?
Do we need to be explicit about a context for our practical work? One way to address this is to ask students to try to make the links themselves. This will be easier in some cases compared to others – the experience of something accelerating due to gravitational attraction is much more tangible than the structure of an atom.
One way to bring in context is to use stories from the news. In Context-based science education by newspaper story problems: A study on motivation and learning effects, Kuhn and Müller (2014) use context through newspaper articles to analyse motivation and achievement in a comparison of six physics classes at secondary level. Groups that used the newspaper articles were shown to have increased motivation and achievement compared to the control groups.
Recent work around ‘science capital’ has shown that context is best used when it means something to the students personally. In his paper, Real World Contexts in PISA Science: Implications for Context-Based Science Education, Fensham (2009) refers to a review of work within the development of the Salters’ curricula “a science concept should not be introduced until it is important for understanding some familiar context in the lives of their students outside school…Teachers’ own affective engagement with these science and technology contexts is important if they are to engage their students.”
On our course Teaching Practical Physics you’ll explore four practical examples of how to contextualise the learning in the topic of radioactivity.
The course goes on to look at how to build progression into practical lessons and how we link practical work together so students can see how their learning fits together. Although we use the topic of waves for our examples, this is something that can be applied across all topics and science in general.
You’ll also consider how students can see the bigger picture of what they are learning. For example, we look at wave speed, but speed also applies within the motion topic and students will need the same understanding to be able to make the calculations within both. With the mathematical demand being significant in physics, showing students these links can boost their confidence, understanding and allow them to make progress within the subject.
It’s a highly interactive course with a range of practical work examples, discussions, quizzes and polls. The activities in the course explore the relationship between theoretical concepts and practical work, challenging you to think about what is happening in the classroom and what your students are learning through practical work in physics.
Bringing science to life (Journal Article)Bennett, J., Lubben, F. and Hogarth, S. (2007). Bringing science to life: A synthesis of the research evidence on the effects of context-based and STS approaches to science teaching. Science Education, 91(3), 347-370.
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