CHEMISTRY TEACHING
Academic year and teacher
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2022/2023
- Teacher
- ELEONORA POLO
- Credits
- 6
- Didactic period
- Secondo Semestre
- SSD
- CHIM/03
Training objectives
- The target of the course is to provide students with the basics of the teaching methodologies and the main tools and methods for its communication in formal and informal contexts.
L’obiettivo del corso è fornire agli studenti le basi delle metodologie didattiche per l'insegnamento della chimica e i principali strumenti e metodi per comunicarla in contesti formali e informali.During the course, students will also have the opportunity to plan a complete educational path for a specific target. The course confers 6 pre-FIT credits which can be included in the 24 credits necessary to access the selection to achieve the teaching habilitation for secondary schools.
At the end of the course the student will have acquired knowledge on:
- the cultural value, the economic, and social role of chemistry in education and society;
- the relationship between chemistry and other disciplines, highlighting its specific characteristics in terms of conceptual structure and cognitive approach to reality;
- the conceptual basis of the teaching of science and chemistry, in particular the relationship between the basic concepts of chemistry at the macroscopic level (simple substance, compound substance, physical state, etc.), microscopic (atom, molecule, etc. ) and symbolic (chemical formula, structural formula, etc.) and their educational transposition;
- the most effective teaching and communication methods, tools and strategies;
- how to take advantage of the new multimedia technological resources and tools for teaching chemistry.
At the end of the course, the student will be able to:
- understand and communicate the contents of chemistry through its three levels of representation (macroscopic, microscopic and symbolic);
- contextualize some landmarks in the history of chemistry in their historical and cultural context;
- use different communication channels and interdisciplinary approaches to teach/communicate chemistry;
- use interactive and laboratory techniques, multimedia resources and technological tools;
- plan teaching units/educational activities according to a structured work plan, clearly defining objectives, methodologies, procedures, timing, and modalities of learning assessment. Prerequisites
- During the course the whole chemistry program carried out in schools will not be treated in a systematic way, therefore they should have a bachelor' s degree and a good knowledge at university level of the topics covered in the chemistry courses of the first and second grade secondary schools
Course programme
- The course is divided into 36 hours.
Topics addressed:
- Public image of chemistry and its impact on chemistry teaching
- Curricular aspects (Syllabus) of the chemistry teaching in the Italian school and teachers' recruiting system. Comparison with the European scenario.
- Conceptual core of chemistry and its connections with other scientific disciplines. Different teaching approaches according to Johnston, Mahaffy, Sjostrom, and Talanquer models.
- Epistemology of science: interpretation of Popper, Kuhn, and Feyerabend.
- Common misconceptions about basic concepts of chemistry
- Criteria and methodologies to create teaching/learning contexts based on the active role of the student: flipped classroom, peer-to-peer education, cooperative learning, laboratory teaching, chunked lesson, learning by doing, gamestorming, and gamification.
- Chemistry teaching in formal and informal environments, and online teaching and communication
- Basics and tools for an effective scientific communication
- Overview of the main learning and teaching models of science (pedagogical activism, behaviorism, cognitivism, constructivism, synthesis of the theories of Bruner, Piaget, Vygotsky, Garner, and Bloom)
- Role of the laboratory in the teaching of chemistry: didactic experiments on the topics covered in the first and second grade secondary schools
- Guidelines to plan a complete didactic unit for secondary schools Didactic methods
- Classroom code: ywcmm7c
The course will be shared between traditional lectures (with the aid of Power Point presentations and videos) in live streaming mode (if it is not possible to do it in person) and focus groups to perform interactive exercises involving the active participation of students both individually and in small groups. Given the particularity of the course, they are an integral part of the final assessment, to verify the learning and to suggest operational guidelines to improve students' teaching and communication skills.
Every week there will usually be two lessons of 2 hours each in 2 distinct days without creating overlaps with other courses and laboratories.
One week before the beginning of the semester the teacher will send an e-mail to all students registered in the classroom to plan an online meeting to define the timetable, and to answer all questions about the course. Learning assessment procedures
- The purpose of the exam is to verify if and at what level the previously described learning objectives have been achieved. It consists of an interview that begins with the presentation of an educational program designed and implemented by the student on one of the topics covered in the school curricula of the first or second grade secondary schools. The topic will be drawn seven days before the exam. Two days before the oral exam, the student will send the teacher a pdf version of the presentation for a preliminary check. The rest of the exam consists of open questions on the points of the program and on the presented project. The teacher will also take into account the participation, the behavior, and the interaction with the other students shown during the interactive learning sessions.
To pass the exam it is necessary to reach a minimum score of 18 out of 30. Reference texts
- - V. Domenici, "Insegnare e apprendere chimica”, Mondadori Università, Firenze 2018.
- R. Crescenzi, R. Vincenzi, e al. "Chimica, cheppàlle!", "Chimica, cheppalle 2!" e "Chimica, cheppalle 3", 2019, 2020, 2022
- D. Gray, S. Brown, J. Macanufo, “Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers”, O'Reilly Media, Inc, USA, 2010.
- C. Giunta, “Come non scrivere. Consigli ed esempi da seguire, trappole e scemenze da evitare quando si scrive in italiano.” UTET, Torino, 2018.
- L. Carrada, "Il mestiere di scrivere", Apogeo Education, 2013
- G. Carrada, "Comunicare la scienza. Kit di sopravvivenza per ricercatori", Sironi, 2005
- Lecture notes prepared by the teacher on specific topics of the course.
