Successful Science and Engineering Teaching: Theoretical and Learning Perspectives

✍ Scribed by Calvin S. Kalman (auth.)

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 2008
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 195
• Series: Innovation and Change in Professional Education 3
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The intent of this book is to describe how a professor can provide a learning environment that assists students to come to grips with the nature of science and engineering, to understand science and engineering concepts, and to solve problems in science and engineering courses. As such, this book is intended to be useful for any science or engineering professor, who wants to change their course to include more effective teaching methods, to instructors at post-secondary institutions, who are beginning their careers, and as a handbook for TA’s. Since the book is based upon articles that I have had published in Science Educational Research and which are grounded in educational research that I have performed (both quantitative and qualitative) over many years, it will also be of interest to anyone engaged in research into teaching science and engineering at the post-secondary level. I have also tried to include enough background so that the book could be used as a textbook for a course in educational practice in science and engineering.

The book has two main axes of development. Firstly, how do we get students to change their epistemology so that their outlook on the course material is not that it consists of a tool kit of assorted practices, classified according to problem type, but rather that the subject comprises a connected structure of concepts. Secondly, helping students to have a deeper understanding of science and engineering.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-xvi
Introduction....Pages 3-6
Intellectual Development and Psychological Types....Pages 7-15
Students Alternative Scientific Conceptions....Pages 17-42
Writing to Learn: Reflective Writing....Pages 43-56
Getting Students to Examine Their Epistemology....Pages 59-67
Critical Thinking....Pages 69-94
Educational Models Based upon Philosophy of Science....Pages 95-109
Changing Student's Epistemologies....Pages 111-128
Courses for Non-science Students....Pages 131-153
Computer Assisted Instruction....Pages 155-174
Summing Up....Pages 175-178
Back Matter....Pages 179-191

✦ Subjects

Science Education; Teaching and Teacher Education