Pedagogical Practice in an Elementary Astronomy Classroom: A Self Reflective Study on the Unit of “Star”

• Main Authors: WU, CHI-LING, 吳季玲
• Other Authors: HSIUNG, CHAO-TI
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/9bsumw

博士 === 國立臺北教育大學 === 自然科學教育學系 === 104 === This study was based on Self-study to review my instruction in the Unit of Star through the reflection and the feedback from the observation of myself and critical friends. I could explore how I explain and improve the teaching design of the Unit of Star in textbooks, how to let the concept of stars flow smoothly in the instruction, and how to lead students to recognize stars and develop the concept of stars. In this way, I identified the pedagogical problems when I taught the Unit of Star. The result shows that teachers thought that the content in the textbooks is not enough, it does not consider students’ interest and the reconstruction of the concept. And the design of teaching activities does not include developing students’ thinking ability to understanding the regular pattern of stars’ motion. It does not enhance students’ attitude of cherishing the environment and appreciating the beauty of the starry sky. Therefore, I modified my instruction.1. Providing many deeper and wider teaching materials. 2. Changing the order of conveying the knowledge of stars and using the pedagogical representation transformation. Helping students build the image of stars’ motion by narrowing the distance between the concepts of the knowledge of stars. 3. Providing the teaching materials for students to develop the attitude of maintaining the environment and appreciating the beauty of the nature. During the teaching process of the 16 lessons, I used abundant of teacher-centered pedagogical representations, leading questions and discussions to help students have the reasoning of the direction and position of stars and new knowledge. Teachers and students co-lead the concept to move on. In the first six lessons, I focused on helping students build the image of stars’ motion. The rest of the instruction also including teach students the usage of the star and planet locators and the procedural knowledge of finding the North Star. However, the following problems appear: 1. The concept of stars which was taught is far away from the design and regulation of the textbooks and the course guideline. 2. It is lack of the use of the student-centered pedagogical representation. 3. There still have misconceptions during instruction and it had influence on building the concept of stars for students. After the study, the followings are the recommendations for the textbooks: 1. The course content design should meet the students’ needs, and we should rearrange the order of presenting the concept. 2. We should provide the extension study activities to help students reconstruct or strength the learning of new concepts. 3. The course design should include training students’ thinking and reasoning abilities. 4. We should provide the teaching materials for appreciating the beauty of the nature. The recommendations for my future instruction: 1. I should design the teaching content based on the priority of the development and need of elementary students. 2. I should design more diverse learning discussion activities, and increase the student-centered study activities. 3. I re-recognize the meaning of the design of course guideline to adjust my future teaching design. Moreover, I look forward to the results of this study will be the reference for the science teachers for their preparing of teaching, practical teaching and professional development.