Problems of Education in the 21st Century

5-8

Authors: Vincentas Lamanauskas

To one who understands at least something about education it is obvious that science education in primary school is very important. Every person’s education fundament is formed here. It is understandable that children before school already have certain knowledge about nature. Pre-school children have to know about animal, plant life, should have knowledge about objects and phenomena of inanimate nature, perceive the essence and meaning of care works. Research works show that pre-school children’s knowledge about nature is not sufficiently exact and exhaustive. We should especially focus on enriching and making the knowledge about animal and plant acclimatization more accurate among 5-7 year old children (Ušeckienė, 2000). On the other hand, it is stated (applying modified Kern test) that in the group of 5-7 year old children cognizing nature and its phenomena an average level of thinking functions and intellect predominates which directly depends on child’s mental maturity level and not on child’s sex and age (Plytnykienė, 2002). It is very important for this knowledge to be deepened and broadened in primary school, i.e., in the 1st -4th forms. In this case, natural science preparation quality largely depends on the teacher, on his competence in natural science. Since 1992 a new subject “The world science” has been introduced in primary school which can be interpreted as one of the components of natural science education. Currently in Lithuanian primary school science education fundamentals are integrated into the world cognition course. Biology, physics, chemistry, technological, ecological problems make the part of this natural science program. The main nature cognition purpose is to educate children’s ability understand the world of nature and communicate with it. So, integration of natural science fundamentals on the one hand and social and natural science components on the other hand will further remain a very meaningful sphere of educational process in primary school.

14-20

Authors: Hana Böhmová, Milada Roštejnská

Education of the gifted and talented children, as potential contributors for the whole society, is emphasized and actively supported in the educational policy of the European Union. The project “Talnet – Online to Science“ originated in Czech Republic is one example of a wide scale of extracurricular activities focused on the education of the gifted and talented. The methods used in Talnet are based mostly on the interaction of the experts with the children, primarily in the on-line “T-courses“. The paper describes the structure, content and results of a two-semester on-line course “Biochemistry and Natural Compounds” that integrates the problem solving method with the home-made chemistry experiments in the form of an e-learning course. About ten talented high-school students from Czech and Slovak Republic participated in the first semester of the course. According to the evaluation results, the students find the course interesting and enriching. Four final theses were written and will be defended; one of them is intended to be applied for the national Contest for Young Scientists.

28-36

Authors: Vivien Mweene Chabalengula, Frackson Mumba, William F.J. Hunter, Erin Wilson

The assessment of students’ manipulation skills is often neglected by teachers. This trend can be partially attributed to traditional assessment practices which focus upon what the student writes in a lab report rather than the student’s physical performance during the lab activity. Therefore, this article reports on the processes which were undertaken when designing the Performance-Based Lab Assessment Technique (PBLAT). The PBLAT can be used to assess the process skill of manipulation of equipment/materials in biology (i.e. assembling, measuring, and experimenting) as the students conduct science lab activities in high schools and colleges/universities. The PBLAT is not limited to biology lab situations as it can be adapted to other sciences.     

45-50

Authors: Pavel Doulík, Jiří Škoda

The paper deals with basic functioning, objectives and challenges of science education at the threshold of the 21st century. The authors define complex issues of science education: global environmental issues and problems, interrelation of science, technology and society, key concepts and crucial issues of science education along with inter-disciplinary thinking. Due to global trends in curricula management, the autonomy of science teachers rises as well as the amount of their responsibility. The most important selected issues are discussed within the article and the authors attempt to seek optimum solution.

60-68

Authors: Jezek Bruno, Vanek Jan, Slaby Antonin

For the past several years computer graphics subjects have played an important role in information and computer technology studies. The inclusion of computer graphics subjects into university curricula is motivated not only by modern technologies and methods being used in this branch, but above all by the training of programming techniques and math application these subjects provide. At the Faculty of Informatics and Management of the University of Hradec Kralove, subjects Computer Graphics I, II and III (CG) have been professed for several years within the curricula of the Applied Informatics and the Information Management study programs. Besides visualisation and graphical data processing, these subjects are focused on practicing and widening the knowledge and practical skills of students, future IT specialists. This paper introduces goals, structure and educational techniques in the CG subjects, which expand informatics subjects such as programming and algorithm development. Educational methods that involve a term project, a special framework and an e-learning support are also described. Finally several specific examples of math application used during problem solving are presented.

78-85

Authors: Sirpa Kärkkäinen, Tuula Keinonen, Risto Juvonen

Exposure to harmful substances such as alcohol, tobacco and drugs, is a danger and risk for the well being and health of children. The better children understand these dangers, the easier it is to avoid the adverse effects. Several studies have dealt with harmful substances and the well-being of young people. However, the role of formal, as well as informal education has not been studied as extensively. This paper presents the first preliminary results from a larger project. This project focuses on what and how toxicology is taught in Finnish schools and how children and young people get information about harmful compounds. The aim of the project is to create a better way of teaching toxicology in school. This paper reveals teacher's students’ thoughts on the teaching of intoxicating substances in primary school. Teacher students wrote before their studies of module “The Human being”. The result of the study shows that primary school teacher students thought that teaching which relates to intoxicating substances, should be neutral and based on facts. We believe that the preliminary results of this study will be useful in improving the teaching of intoxicating substances in teacher education.

104-128

Authors: Stéphanie Mathé, Laurence Viennot

With this investigation, we sought to assess the extent to which future journalists and science mediators are able to take a positive attitude towards stressing the coherence of physical theories in their chosen profession. To this end, we also examined a second question: how members of this same population react to an exercise designed to stress the value of coherence in physics, as a possible source of intellectual satisfaction. We sought to document the possible impact of the obstacles we had anticipated, and to characterize the students’ progression in relation to the goals just described. Our investigation was based on 14 interviews with third-year university students who hoped to become journalists or science mediators. We focused our interaction with them on a specific example in physics, concerning a problematic hypothesis widely used in explaining how a hot air balloon operates. We provided elucidation in the course of each student’s intellectual progression during the interview. Finally, we report their value judgements – impressively positive – concerning the two questions outlined above. The results suggest that, despite their low level of specialization in physics, such students can develop, at least in the very particular circumstances described, a critical and positive attitude towards searching for and stressing coherence in physics. They also support the idea that, were a concern for coherence to be taken as a desirable component of a training programme, corresponding teaching-learning sequences should be prepared, designed and evaluated in great detail, to ensure optimum adaptation to each individual’s progression.

139-150

Authors: Marek Persona, Andrzej Persona, Tomasz Gęca, Agnieszka Kaczor, Dariusz Matosiuk

The application of computational technique for predicting biological activity of chemicals plays an important role in the development and design of new drugs. Being now a routine approach in medicinal chemistry, the method still encounters difficulties in teaching medical science students. In this paper the project of introduction the students to the computational tools and approaches usually used in pharmacy and medicine is presented. The project involves estimation of the skin permeability of theaflavonoids in respect to their usefulness in topical application. Topical application of flavonoids for inhibition of skin tumor is preferred because flavonoids are poorly absorbed from intestines and are decomposed by intestinal microorganisms.

159-169

Authors: Tiia Rüütmann, Jüri Vanaveski

Engineering educators should gain greater confidence through the use of extended range of contemporary teaching tools by obtaining specifics of the art of teaching. Teaching methods fostering active and long-term engagement with learning tasks are used at Estonian Centre for Engineering Pedagogy. Understanding student different learning styles is one of the midpoints of teacher training. The aim of the study programme for engineering educators is to abolish mismatches between students’ common learning styles and traditional teaching styles of engineering educators. The curriculum for engineering educators concentrates on interactive lectures and contemporary teaching methods emphasising conceptual understanding, adapted specially for engineering education, being introduced in the following article.