Gultekin Cakmakci

A Cross-Sectional Study of the Understanding of the Relationships Between Concentration and Reaction Rate among Turkish Secondary and Undergraduate Students

This research describes a cross-sectional study, which will give insights into the development of students’ understanding of chemical kinetics (at key points, in relation to relevant teaching) from secondary to university level, in Turkey. The study is based mainly on the written responses given by school and undergraduate students to a series of written tasks involving concepts and phenomena in chemical kinetics. A small-scale interview study was also carried out with a number of students to obtain further information regarding students’ ideas about chemical kinetics and to check for appropriate interpretation of the written responses. In this paper, our focus is on the students’ understanding of the relationships between the concentrations of reactants/products and reaction rate. Analysis of students’ responses on written probes and in interviews indicates that, after instruction, many students use conceptions not consistent with scientific perspectives, and have conceptual difficulties in understanding the relationships between concentration and reaction rate. Furthermore, the results show that students did not frequently use “particulate” and “mathematical” modelling, and in most cases such modelling was not used as intended by the curriculum. The results indicate a need to review curricula, and instructional practices, in the light of the students’ difficulties in understanding chemical kinetics.

Bilimin Doğası Öğretiminde Kullanılan Söylem Desenleri ve İletişim Yaklaşımları

This study aims to determine discourse patterns and communicative approaches utilised for teaching the nature of science (NOS) using an explicit–reflective approach. This study was conducted as part of a research project aiming to support teachers’ classroom practices through a long-term professional development program focusing on teaching NOS. Discourse analysis was used to determine classroom discourse patterns and communicative approaches. Audio and video recordings of classroom lectures conducted by 8 of the 22 teachers participating in the project were used for analysis. A total of 505 minutes of teacher–student dialogue was recorded and subsequently analysed. The results indicated that teachers used three different discourse patterns (triadic, chain, and adjacency pair) and three different communicative approaches (interactive–dialogic, interactive–authoritative, and non-interactive–dialogic) for teaching NOS using the explicit–reflective approach. The most common discourse pattern was the triadic pattern (initiation–response–evaluation), and the interactive–authoritative approach was the most common communicative approach. These findings contribute to the literature in terms of increasing the efficiency of using the explicit–reflective approach by considering classroom discourse to teach students NOS.

Promoting Pre-service Teachers’ Ideas About Nature of Science Through Science-Related Media Reports

Utilizing inquiry-based science teaching and learning (IBST/L) does not necessarily ensure learning of nature of science (NOS). Teachers who are trained to utilize IBST/L should also be concerned about their students’ understanding of NOS, because without explicit NOS teaching, students fail to grasp important characteristics of science even after a successful inquiry-based science learning experience. In this chapter, an innovative approach using science-related media reports is suggested as a tool for promoting pre-service teachers’ (PSTs) ideas about NOS. The promise of this approach is that using media reports as an instructional tool helps PSTs, and in turn helps their students, to become better informed and more discerning consumers of scientific information. This chapter contains resources and strategies to assist science teachers and teacher educators on the use of media reports of science in their classroom practices to enhance their students’ conceptions of NOS. The chapter also provides details of the formative assessment procedures used in this study as well as materials concerning science concepts and formative assessment as a support mechanism for learning.

Improving science teachers’ nature of science views through an innovative continuing professional development program

BackgroundThis study describes how teachers’ nature of science (NOS) views changed throughout an innovative Continuing Professional Development (CPD) program that provided sustained support throughout the process in a collaborative and reflective environment and activities that are consistent with the current curriculum and NOS tenets integrated within. Eighteen in-service science teachers enrolled in a yearlong nature of science, Continuing Professional Development (NOS-CPD) program. Data were collected by pre/post-interviews using the Views of Nature of Science-Form C (VNOS-C) questionnaire, and a post-interview using an open-ended questionnaire developed by researchers to uncover teacher reactions to the NOS-CPD program.ResultsThe results indicated that the NOS-CPD program improved the teachers’ NOS views more effectively than previously reported short-term teacher development programs, and thus, the findings should be useful for future studies in support of the professional development of teachers.ConclusionsThe article concludes with practical advice for implementing NOS-focused, in-service teacher development programs.