Didactics of Physics - Projects

Fostering the understanding of the nature of science in differentiative science lessons

Within the scope of the Telekom Foundation funding line "Didactics STEM Fellowship" a conversational science reflection method will be refined for STEM lessons and researched collaterally, especially in biology. This method, the Reflective Reviewing Café, offers the opportunity for teachers to consolidate, connect learning content and put it in a wider context (theory of science) as well as to foster social and communicative competencies. In daily school life, teachers can hardly realize the development and arrangement of such an extensive method. In particular, when this method has to meet high standards: it needs to be easily integrated in existing science lessons and low maintenance. Therefore, the project focuses on the development of a modular method, which can be adapted to lesson circumstances through composition and with a short preparation time. For this purpose, participating teachers are interviewed to meet their specific requirements and to take into account the actual lesson situations, anticipated problems and the teachers? ideas. For the students the Reflective Reviewing Café provides a platform to try out ideas and thoughts under discussion, to practice argumentative discussion strategies and to link lesson contents individually as well as to communicate and discuss them. Through the reflection on conducted experiments or other methods of acquiring and consolidating knowledge the students might gain valuable insight into the nature of science (Understanding of the characteristics of science) or expand it.