New Perspectives in Science Education

The work presented here has been developed in the context of the course of Educational Innovation and Science Research, with 74 students from the Teacher Training in Secondary Education Master at the Faculty of Science. One of the aims of this course is to analyse the educational applications of information and communication technology, as well as other multimedia resources in the educational processes. Therefore, one of the contents of this subject is to learn how to teach in a technological context, analysing what should be the new profile of the teaching profession caused by the new technologies. Given this approach, the overall objective of the experience has been to design and validate teaching materials based on the use of ICTs that can serve our students, future teachers of secondary education, for their integration into their classroom teaching programs, an indispensable competence in the initial training of future teachers. More specifically, we focused on the development of "treasure hunts" as teaching tools that enhance meaningful learning of the contents of the "Physics and Chemistry" course at a compulsory secondary education level. In an initial survey of our students about what virtual resources they knew that could be introduced into their future teaching methodology, we found that only 8% of the surveyed students (graduates in physics or chemistry) were aware of the existence of tools like webquests or treasure hunts. For this reason, in the first session they were taught the structure and purpose of the treasure hunts, analysing the possible advantages and disadvantages of this type of education tools. They were then provided software for conducting treasure hunts aimed at secondary students. Finally, the stage of development of this work was carried out, in which the students had to design, develop and plan the set up of their treasure hunts, linking them to their teaching programs. The teaching experience carried out has resulted in the creation of 74 treasure hunts that focus student attention on scientific content of physics or chemistry, through key questions specifically designed to grab their attention. To make an assessment of the materials developed, we used a rubric that evaluated the aesthetic, functional and pedagogical aspects of the treasure hunts designed. The results have shown the great educational value that such a tool presents to support the learning of the proposed unit in the teaching program in which the activity is contextualized.