What Are The Goals And Objectives Of Teaching Science?

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What Are The Aims, Objectives Of Teaching Science | Goal And Purpose Of Science Teaching And Learning | Why Is Teaching Science Important? | What Are The 8 Main Goals Of Science - Acquisition Of Knowledge And Understanding, Development Of Scientific Attitude/Outlook, Nurturing Creativity, Development Of Skills, Development Of Problem Solving Skill, Nurturing Curiosity, Development Of Thinking Abilities, Nurturing Aesthetic Sense | What Are The Main Objectives And Goals Of Teaching Science

Goals(Purpose) And Objectives Of Teaching Science

Creation of knowledge is crucial to children’s learning.

Science Is The Investigation And Interpretation Of Natural Phenomena Which Occur In Our Daily Life.

Some Goals and Objectives of teaching science are:

  1. Acquisition of knowledge and understanding
  2. Development of scientific attitude/outlook
  3. Nurturing creativity
  4. Development of skills
  5. Development of Problem-solving skills
  6. Nurturing curiosity
  7. Development of thinking abilities
  8. Nurturing aesthetic sense

1.  Acquisition Of Knowledge And Understanding

Science knowledge provides a sound base

  • To explore the unknown, and
  • To build further knowledge.

Therefore, it is significant for children to acquire knowledge of science content, its concepts, and underlying principles.

Previous experiences attained by students are central to knowledge creation, as previous experiences lead students to develop new ideas.

  • Teachers need to collect such experiences of children to build further knowledge on their previous knowledge.
  • Trustworthy tools to procure previous information are Drawings, Maps, and Charts, etc. Created by students.
  • Teacher may engage the children in meaningful discussions through Questioning and Listening for gathering previous student knowledge.

Science knowledge cannot be passed to children directly. In addition, science understanding cannot be developed by rote learning.

Science knowledge can be aroused by

  1. Providing children relevant and age-appropriate learning opportunities.
  2. Permitting students to undergo experiential learning through exploration and interaction with their environment.
  3. Help in constructing their own knowledge.

2.  Development Of Scientific Attitude/Outlook

Scientific attitude is an amalgamation of a number of mental processes or tendencies to react consistently in definite ways to a novel or problematic situation.

Scientific Outlook include

  • Accuracy and Intellectual honesty,
    • To be accurate and truthful in doing experiments, making observations, recording, and reporting.
  • Open-mindedness,
    • To be open-minded and hear anything from anybody.
  • Respect for evidence,
    • To receive information and come to a conclusion or judgment only based on facts.
  • Skepticism,
    • Science promotes skepticism; scientists are vastly skeptical people.
  • Suspended judgment,
    • Always ready to test and verify own judgments. To believe that nothing is final in Science.
  • Critical thinking,
    • To be constantly critical and curious and continually seek knowledge by inquiring.
    • Scientists, because of their thirst for knowledge become perpetual learners.
  • Looking at true cause and effect relationship.
    • To have faith in cause-and-effect relationships.
Also Read: Nature Of Science

Science attitude can be nurtured over a period of time through the process of providing relevant learning situations like:

  • Creating an open classroom environment.
  • To let students freely interact with their surroundings.
  • Encouraging children to perform activities and experiments.
  • Encouraging children to read scientific literature.
  • Prompting students by asking questions.

A science teacher needs to provide children experiences of a number of scientific activities, develop a scientific attitude and temper, and create a strong base for a thorough understanding of science.

3.  Nurturing Creativity

Creativity has been defined in a number of ways:

  • Creativity is doing or seeing things differently.
  • Creativity is the production of relevant and novel products and processes.

Creative thinking empowers a learner to explore existing alternatives and consequences of actions or non-actions and contributes to decision-making and problem-solving. A creative child thinks differently, possess thinking abilities which are:

  • Intuitive,
  • Original,
  • Independent,
  • Divergent, and
  • Fearless.
Creative thinking is a novel or innovative way of seeing or doing things.

Creativity cannot be taught, but developed in students by using planned strategies and techniques. A creative child wonders what makes things work, they

  • Likes to ask thought-provoking questions rather than fact-seeking or memory-type questions.
  • They are a keen observer who ponders over the outcome of an event of phenomena and seeks information.
  • Expresses unending curiosity, and
  • Welcomes new ideas.

From the pedagogical perspective of science, inquiry, and activity-oriented, process-based teaching-learning can facilitate nurturing creativity.

The teacher plays an important role in nurturing creativity in learners. The teacher should identify the traits and provide a variety of learning experiences of inquiry and discovery of science to nurture creativity. The role of the teacher should be to:

  1. Assist students in developing models of inquiry and express to the students that their ideas have value.
  2. Encourage students to frame questions and browse a variety of reading materials.
  3. Recognize and appreciate the creative ideas and products of students.
  4. Provide a rich variety of learning experiences to students and Guide students in the use of a multidisciplinary approach.

4.  Development Of Skills

Science is important to all young people not only to obtain the knowledge related to it but also to imbibe its inquiry and process skills. These skills involve the use of all the sense organs providing hands-on experiences for enjoyable and effective learning.

For instance:

  • Laboratory skills are required during performing experiments. In order to do experiments, students have to
    • Handle apparatus carefully,
    • Set up the apparatus to perform the experiment and
    • Make correct observations.
Science is about asking questions and finding answers to them through scientific method and inquiry.

Skills are necessary for the students to develop knowledge of science. All the basic skills are important individually as well as when they are integrated. These skills are long-lasting; thus, tend to be useful throughout each area of our lives.

For instance:
  • When students do experiments in the laboratory they have to work with other students cooperatively, they need to share the responsibilities, need to listen to one another to be understanding. This skill is called a general skill.

Some of the skills students need to develop are:

  • Drawing skills,
  • General skills,
  • Laboratory skills etc.

Skills enable students to develop into adults who are able to make informed and responsible actions while engaging and reflecting upon different ideas, opinions, beliefs, or values.

5.  Development Of Problem Solving Skill

Problem-solving means that an individual has learned the skills and acquired relevant information necessary to solve problems that are not only curricular but also related to everyday life.

Simply acquiring knowledge of science is not sufficient to solve problems in science, students must assimilate what cognitive psychologists call

  • Declarative knowledge and
  • Procedural knowledge

Declarative knowledge: It consists of the body of knowledge and facts needed to work in science.

Procedural knowledge: It consists of procedures and heuristics that can be applied to solve problems also known as ‘knowledge of processes’.

Organize the knowledge in such a way that can be retrieved easily to solve problems is very crucial to problem-solving. At the same time, with acquiring and organizing declarative knowledge, one must also obtain procedural knowledge.

Several skills essential for problem-solving can be deepened by providing opportunities to students like:

  • To ask questions,
  • Look for alternative explanations and procedures,
  • Apply reasoning and analogy,
  • Keep record,
  • Think aloud,
  • Isolate and control variables,
  • Make models, and
  • Apply process skills in teaching-learning of science.

Students feel a sense of achievement while working on the problem, exploring different possibilities. Students realize potential during problem-solving and on getting success they develop self-confidence.

In order to provide opportunities for problem-solving teachers need to inculcate the following abilities among the learners:

  • Flexible and divergent thinking;
  • Searching for innovative practices;
  • Decision making and generating self-confidence;
  • Correlating between various quantities/phenomena;
  • Accepting/rejecting hypothesis;
  • Checking the validity of results;
  • Expressing the task in terms of goals;
  • Developing positive and cooperative attitude; and
  • Creating new challenges for life.

6.  Nurturing Curiosity

Students come across many questions out of curiosity like

  • Why?,
  • What?,
  • How?,
  • When? etc.
Curiosity leads to inculcation of learning to learn aspect of education.

Curiosity gets aroused as a result of

  • Contradiction,
  • Cognitive conflict,
  • Doubt,
  • Ambiguity,
  • Perplexity,
  • Lack of clarity, etc.
Science is nothing but all that happens around us.

Teacher needs to create fitting learning situations for nurturing curiosity among students like : When students ask such questions, the teacher should not discourage them. Also, Curiosity can be generated in the students by

  1. Encouraging them to participate in Science exhibitions, Science quizzes, etc.
  2. Taking them to science centers.
  3. Facilitating interaction with persons having a scientific attitude.
  4. Providing opportunities to work on science projects and Read scientific literature.
  5. Assisting them to find answers using scientific principles.
  6. Designing science activities to incorporate several factors making up curiosity.

7.  Development Of Thinking Abilities

Critical thinking is the ability to analyses information and experiences in an objective manner.

Critical thinking needs a deliberate review of the course like:

  • How activities are carried out,
  • The procedure of how ideas emerge and
  • The way all these can be improved.

The process of linkage of the past experiences in terms of cause and effect relationship on a model of set rules, i.e. thinking with reasoning is known as logical thinking. Scientific temper is refined logical thinking.

In science, thinking abilities proliferates science learning potentials.

Reflecting on the method of thinking does not come readily to students as it comprises abstract thinking as well. Science teachers can facilitate and smooth the progress by

  1. Engaging the students in discussions through activities.
  2. Help students to reason out consistently before arriving at conclusion.

8.  Nurturing Aesthetic Sense

Aesthetics deals with the creation and appreciation of beauty that gives us happiness. Some of the criteria which define beauty are:

  • Harmony,
  • Order,
  • Pattern etc.

A learner of science is also concerned with beauty.

  • For example: Observing the flowers while walking in the garden one can appreciate their color and wonder why the flower is of that particular color, the type of flower, its conventional and unconventional uses, etc.

Students values creation and derives joy when discovers that a specific toy or a gadget works on the same scientific principle that he/she has already studied. Students feel enthusiastic to see patterns in the properties of substances and other things in their surroundings.

For nurturing aesthetic sense through science teaching-learning, the teacher may encourage students to consider the following points:

  1. Observe keenly while doing any work.
  2. Learn to be Generous and Conscious of one’s inner being.
  3. Observe, analyze and reject what is not scientific.
  4. Develop the sense of Sacrifice and Self- righteousness.

B.Ed

B.Ed Notes

Pedagogy of Science

Teaching of Science

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What Are The 8 Main Goals Of Science - Acquisition Of Knowledge And Understanding, Development Of Scientific Attitude/Outlook, Nurturing Creativity, Development Of Skills, Development Of Problem Solving Skill, Nurturing Curiosity, Development Of Thinking Abilities, Nurturing Aesthetic Sense Notes

What Are The Main Objectives And Goals Of Teaching Science Notes For B.Ed In English Medium

What Is The Big Goal And Purpose Of Science Teaching And Learning Explain Notes And Study Material, PDF, PPT, Assignment For B.Ed 1st and 2nd Year, DELED, M.Ed, CTET, TET, Entrance Exam, All Teaching Exam Test Download Free For Pedagogy of Science And Teaching of Science Subject.

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