SCIENCE TEACHING APPROACHES AND STRATEGIES

FRETZEL JOY VIZCARRA PANGILINAN

The biggest challenge before a teacher is how to teach Science lessons. If this teaching – learning activities are effective, students can reach the goals of life by acquisition of knowledge, skills and values in Science.

As defined by Dr. Rosalyn Yalon, a Nobel Laureate in Medicine, science is… “… not simply a collection of facts. It is a discipline of thinking about rational solutions to problems after establishing the basic facts derived from observations. It is hypothesizing from what is known to what might be and then attempting to test the hypothesis… .logical thinking must come first; the facts can come later.

Knowledge is sometimes labeled as the products of science. It generally refers to facts, concepts, principles, laws, and theories. Process skills are the empirical and analytic procedures used by scientists in solving problems.

Some of the important attitudes students will have to learn and demonstrate in science include curiosity, honesty, objectivity, openness perseverance, and skepticism withholding judgment. Learners learn and develop as a whole person. The learners’ cognitive, affective, physical, social and emotional areas are intricately intertwined. Learners cannot grow in one area without affecting the other areas.

Learners learn best through active involvement with concrete experiences. Research studies show that the use of hands-on activities can result in significant improvements in academic performance and attitude of students towards science.

As such, teaching will be more effective if you will present science as a way of finding out rather than as a body of facts to be memorized. Allow learners to discover and to organize the information, equip them with problem-solving and decisionmaking skills. It also results in knowledge that is more easily remembered and recalled than rote learning.

Adapt science experiences to the learners’developmental levels Learners differ on how they operate mentally. Therefore, you must arrange experiences that fit what they can do. Also, students have different learning styles. To be more effective, you must be aware of their learning styles and you must consider them in choosing which teaching methods to use. In teaching science, it is meant that those procedures and methods by which objectives of teaching are realized in the class.