Patrícia Albergaria Almeida

WHERE LEARNERS QUESTIONS MEET MODES OF TEACHING: A STUDY OF CASES

1 I what follows we determine particular styles of questioning and argue that these styles can complement or confl ict with particular modes of teaching. There can be match or mismatch between learning and teaching. The sceptical reader may quickly dismiss this issue: a sure-fi re way to resolve any possible mismatch is to suppress questions from the very start: the ‘bulldozer’ mode of teaching simply ignores or brushes aside students’ questions and powers forward regardless of any learner query. Needless to say, our work is devoted to building teaching styles that both encourage and facilitate learners’ questions, and covers a series of explorations of students’ questions, generated within learning and teaching in science (e.g. Pedrosa de Jesus et al., 2004, 2005; Teixeira-Dias et al., 2003). Our emphasis here lies, fi rst, in associating students’ questioning styles with students’ learning styles, and then on the ways that such questioning styles may, in turn, mesh with different approaches to teaching. This particular research is focused on undergraduate studies in chemistry and leans heavily on Kolb’s (1984) Experiential Learning Theory (ELT).

The interplay between students' perceptions of context and approaches to learning

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the teaching, learning and assessment strategies conceived and implemented in a higher education chemistry course promote the development of higher‐order skills as intended. Thus, our main aim is to analyse the approaches to learning in chemistry undergraduates. This research was carried out in a naturalistic setting, within the context of chemistry classes for first‐year science and engineering courses at the University of Aveiro, Portugal. At the end of the academic year, the 10 chemistry students with the highest grades and the 10 chemistry students with the lowest grades were selected for interview. Data were also gathered by means of observation of chemistry classes, documentary analysis and the administration of the Portuguese version of the Approaches and Study Skills Inventory for Students. The students with the better grades revealed a conception of learning emphasising understanding, while the students with the lowest grades conceived learning as merely memorising and reproducing. The students with the highest grades diverged both in their learning approaches and in their preferences for teaching strategies. The students with the lowest grades adopted a surface or a combination of a surface and a strategic approach, and their preference for teaching matched their approach to learning. This chemistry course was intentionally designed to promote deep learning and understanding. However, students perceived the purposes and the context of this course in different ways. Introducing a constructivist learning environment seems to require detailed and systematic guidance by the teacher. Continuous feedback should also be provided to students to orientate their learning and to try to diminish surface approaches to learning.

Orchestrating learning and teaching in interdisciplinary chemistry

Abstract: The work reported here focuses upon the progress of a university department as it attempts to orchestrate the interplay between the demands of undergraduate chemistry and the particular learning characteristics of students, and the approaches to teaching and learning favoured by staff. The discipline of chemistry is depicted as a practical scientific discipline that is continuously undergoing change and advancement and not as a static, abstract body of transmitted knowledge. The learners in the course come from a range of backgrounds, and have been surveyed for their learning preferences using Kolbs (1999) Learning Styles Inventory. This has allowed the department to ‘tune’ or tailor some of its course provision towards these characteristics. These developments include ‘enhancement’ lectures to broaden the appeal of chemistry, moves to enact a greater devolution of learning to the learners, and the re‐configuring of traditional laboratory exercises and project work to increase learner autonomy....

Improving the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning through Classroom Research

The scholarship of teaching emerged in the last decades as a fundamental concept to the development of good teaching practices in Higher Education and, consequently, to the enhancement of the quality of student learning. Considering that scholarship comprehends a process as well as an outcome, research on teaching and learning should be viewed as one important aspect of the scholarship of teaching. The goal of this essay is to illustrate how the scholarship of teaching and learning can be enhanced through the development of classroom research rooted on students’ questioning, conceived and implemented by both university teachers and educational researchers. Valuing and stimulating students’ questions offers an innovative dimension to science education as it puts students at a central role in the learning process. This way, encouraging students’ questioning also strengthens teaching-research links by bringing teachers and learners together in a community of inquiry.

Approaches to Learning and Kolb's Learning Styles of Undergraduates with Better Grades

The purpose of this study is to investigate if the teaching, learning and assessment strategies conceived and implemented in a higher education chemistry course promote the development of conceptual understanding, as intended. Thus, our aim is to analyse the learning styles and the approaches to learning of chemistry undergraduates with better grades. The overall results show that the students with better grades possess the assimilator learning style, that is usually associated to the archetypal chemist. Moreover, the students with the highest grades revealed a conception of learning emphasising understanding. However, these students diverged both in their learning approaches and in their preferences for teaching strategies. The majority of students adopted a deep approach or a combination of a deep and a strategic approach, but half of them revealed their preference for teaching-centred strategies.