Experiences

The use of different teaching approaches in chemistry classroom

Iluta Bebrkārkle

Latvia

Lower Secondary School

Chemistry

Teaching in class, Laboratory, Extracurricular activity

Direct

I teach chemistry from Form 8 to Form 12 and sciences for Form 5, 6 and 10. Most of the students, usually to first lessons of sciences (Form 5) and chemistry (Form 8) come with spark in their eyes, because they are expecting many different miracles.
One of the problems is large amount of students per class (about 27 or more students), and this might be the reason why teacher could not pay attention to each student individually during the laboratory work, as well as teacher could not give individual consultation. To accomplish that student could learn all of the experimental skills, which are specified in the standard, chemistry laborant comes in to lessons. To keep students interest of these subjects, it is mandatory to let every student to do laboratory work by him self – individually. I have tried such a method, when I split class on two halves, one part is doing laboratory work with laborant and I work with the other part of the students by acquiring the theoretical part of the respective topic. The disadvantages of such approach is that there is an increased need for raw materials than when working in pairs, so there is also a bigger amount of materials for utilization. The advantage is that each student has conducted an experiment and gains satisfaction with the work done, along with self-confidence with his/her own skills.
For the students who have a special interest about one specific topic I offer to switch the roles and to try out being a teacher. For example, in Form 6 when studying the topic Strength and Speed one student prepared a presentation about the 3 Laws of Newton (which are note obligatory to acquire according to standards). All the other students listened with interest. In situations when I notice that it is difficult for students to understand my idea and explanation about a chemical process I chose the method Change the roles. The same is done also in the Form 10, for example, when learning about the topic Electrons in Atom, as sometimes it is easier for students to receive the explanation of their contemporaries.
If the topic students learn is connected to the questions about environment, then they make video presentations, for example, “Concrete factory effect on the soil, water and air”. After the presentation students are keen to take a part in discussions, to express their view in any of questions. Within relaxed atmosphere students have acquired topical questions connected with chemistry.
As far as possible we organize field trips to companies, for example, “Liepājas Ūdens” or “Liepājas RAS”. Seeing how these processes are done in real situations, students might understand production technology schemes better. These companies, which are not located near by Liepaja, we have opportunities to watch educational films.