SCIENCE MOVIES IN THE 21ST CENTURY TEACHING AND LEARNING

ROWENA M. CUBELO

Learner’s engagement and understanding of materials is given more importance in today’s education over spoon feeding the facts. Thus, using black-boards or typical lecture methods are no longer adequate to teach science and other related subjects.

More than just transmission of facts or findings in science, learners will love to discover the world of science. These advanced teaching methods in science can substitute the typical teaching techniques to achieve the goal. Science teachers take initiatives to take them for science movies in theatres or in school halls that clearly showcase the application side of scientific concepts. More than just entertaining them, many science movies captivate their attention and illustrate diverse science concepts in the real world. Science and nature-focused documentaries is one of the best ways to introduce science to students rather than using the traditional way

By the advent of science movies to teach can definitely be a motivation to students to learn when carried out in a proper manner, it boasts of numerous benefits. Unlike texts, movies enable students to learn visually. The movie Jurassic Park, for example, allows a student to view the existence of Dinosaurs before they became extinct, a paramount figure in the history books. The visual clips provide a greater understanding of the time and era as well as the lifestyle of the historical figure than simple words. Additionally, movies are not limited in the way books are. They occasionally go beyond the curriculum and touch upon topics which might not be part of the course but important nevertheless.

In today’s technological advancement era, education has excelled the traditional and conventional methods of teaching. Gone are the days when using technology for imparting knowledge seemed like a distant dream. A product of this technological development, the modern concept of utilizing movies as a tool for providing education continues to find new suitors with each passing day. With textbooks often failing to entice the younger students, combining learning with a source of entertainment seems like the ideal way of getting the most out of them.

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The author is SST III at O’Donnel High School, Division Of Tarlac Province