Problems of Education in the 21st Century

5-8

Authors: Vincentas Lamanauskas

Science Education (hereafter-SE) actuality in the world is not only not decreasing but on the contrary, it is constantly increasing. As you know, very interesting and contradictory results were received in 2004 having carried out international comparative ROSE research. Once again I’d like to encourage all who are interested in science education actualities and problems to get familiar with already mentioned research. This is also important for the reason that Lithuania didn’t take part in this research, therefore we can approximately judge about our position according to the results shown by the pupils of neighboring Latvia. However, these results are not enjoyable because 15 year old pupils’ preferences with respect to science disciplines in many aspects are negative. This is a common tendency of so called developed countries. You can find detailed information about this research on http://www.ils.uio.no/english/rose/. There are lots of publications and other interesting material related to research and its perspectives. It is foreseen to carry out a similar research once again this year and to compare the results of 2004 and 2008. It is difficult to predict how the situation will have changed. However, it is obvious that in the last decades the results of pupils’ tests in most developed countries are not getting better despite big investments and constant efforts to improve the quality of education. The conception of science education changes, much higher requirements are set for the youth science literacy. In the change of science education understanding the necessity arises to prepare new teaching devices, both traditional devices and the devices which are realized by the help of modern ICT. All this undoubtedly has direct influence on the quality of education. Quality imperative is especially emphasized in the report of UNESCO EFA, 2005. Those who are bringing up youth generation have to be interested in this.

17-23

Authors: Agnaldo Arroio, Káthia Maria Honório

The way as Chemistry is boarded in the schools can contribute for the misconceptions, a time that the concepts are presented of form purely theoretician (and, therefore, tedious for the majority of the pupils), as something that must be memorize and that it is not apply the different aspects of the daily life. So, the aim of this work is to provide the understanding of the chemical world that underlies everything around us by introducing basic chemical concepts and their everyday applications. So that, some specific topics will be presented and they were selected according to their relevance and their ability to be presented in lessons on molecular modeling. This strategy is based on the use of images and free graphics programs employed in chemistry successfully, as the visual effects help the students to “see” abstract descriptions in a concrete form. According to the results obtained by using this methodology, we can conclude that the use of images and computational techniques help the presentation of scientific topics and motivate and facilitate the "chemistry communication".

34-41

Authors: Noor Azina Ismail, Halimah Awang

This paper analyzes mathematics performance of grade eight students using Malaysian data drawn from Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2003. In particular it examines the effects of students’ characteristics and attitudes towards mathematics learning on their achievement. Background information including gender of students, parents’ education level and whether students speak the language of test at home are assessed in terms of their influence on mathematics score. The number of books in home, availability of study desks and computers in home are categorized as educational resources while students’ attitude takes into account students’ educational aspirations, their perception of being safe in school, time spent on mathematics homework, self-confidence in learning mathematics and the value students place on mathematics. Chi-squared tests and odds ratios are used to examine the associations and strength of the relationships of these factors with mathematics achievement. The results show that except for gender, language spoken at home and time spent on mathematics homework, all of the other variables have significant positive influence in classifying students to low, medium and high achievers.

53-58

Authors: Maria Gabriela Lorenzo

Science by and for everyone Programme provides varied activities through the Centre for Research and Support of Scientific Education (CIAEC). The improvement of both the sciences teaching and learning at different educational levels, attempting on the scientific literacy of the whole educational community is aimed. CET Programme (stands for the Spanish name Ciencia Entre Todos) proposes answers to issues of special significance to secondary school as well as first-year college students. It also addresses the training of teachers, and the advising for the resolution of specific problems in specific contexts. We take in account that it is necessary to establish and consolidate a transforming relationship between the University and society at large through a communicative, educational and scientific program that defends equal access to knowledge and an education for everyone, and contributes to a sustainable development of the region. Different activities related to teaching, research and extension, are linked. We promote training in service for teachers, new practical activities, self-evaluation, and collaborative work. Particularly, we established a team under a network way. The network is useful for thinking, analyzing and evaluating our own problems, in order to explore new answers for those problems.

65-73

Authors: Jasminka N. Korolija, Snezana Rajic, Ljuba M. Mandic

In the last century chemistry played an important role in improving the quality of living. However, uncontrolled application of many chemistry achievements has resulted in a range of problems (environmental pollution, food production…) requiring solution in the current century. Solving the problems, apart from chemists, should involve every individual who will take care of what he is taking or giving back to the living environment, who will take care of his health that well-balanced diet is one of the prerequisites for. Starting from the aforementioned, it was assumed that the introduction of foodstuffs as teaching content and/or teaching aids in the teaching of chemistry, at different levels of education would provide for observation/problem solving of a well-balanced diet and developing of chemistry literacy, vice versa. Therefore, the present paper examines the possibilities of presenting various foodstuffs and additives at the beginning of teaching themes (transition to scientific concepts is best realized through spontaneous concepts), at the end of teaching themes (systematizing numerous scientific concepts) and within knowledge testing. Investigations were carried out with primary school students (103) by applying diverse teaching methods and forms of work. Such approach to learning (from spontaneous concepts through chemistry concepts to well-balanced diets, or from foodstuffs over spontaneous concepts to scientific ones) brought about the climate, where a student gets the impression that he only expands the knowledge he already possesses, the possibility of developing chemistry (scientific) literacy and accomplishment of education about the importance of a well-balanced diet.

81-89

Authors: Danuse Nezvalova

The constructivist perspective is becoming a dominant paradigm in the field of the science education. This approach in the initial science teacher training is not still too common at many European teacher training institutions. In this article the constructivist approach in science teacher training is described. Science teacher training in five science teacher training institutions in five European countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Lithuania and Turkey) is compared in this article. These countries cooperate on the project which in the main goal is to implement constructivist approach in science teacher training.

97-106

Authors: Sirje Piht, Eve Eisenschmidt

In initial teacher education, we have put a lot of effort into improving student teachers’ readiness to support learners’ motivation and use diverse teaching methods. The objective of this paper is to research the motivation to learn mathematics and mental arithmetic among primary school pupils in student teachers’ practice schools. In Estonia, the problem is that most pupils don’t like science studies, and most university students prefer social sciences. Mental arithmetic strategies and arithmetic skills used by pupils are important in mathematics, as well as in everyday life. Teachers’ skills in teaching mathematics are poor and there is a little variability. A survey was conducted in April and May 2006 among the 1st to 3rd form pupils of 7 student teachers’ practice schools in Estonia. Research results were then compared to the results of research conducted simultaneously in Finland, and also among 1st to 3rd form pupils in practice school. The present article focuses on pupils’ attitudes toward mathematics and mental arithmetic. The main results of the research show that the attitude toward mathematics among pupils is positive. The comparison showed that Finnish pupils’ attitudes are more positive toward mathematics than Estonian pupils’ and boys have a more positive attitude than girls. In teaching methodologies and teacher training, the emphasis has to be put on the problems girls are having. This is because girls are the ones who don’t like mathematics and mental arithmetic.