New Perspectives in Science Education

Creative learning involves meaningful learning, ownership of learning, control of learning processes and innovation when new understanding is realised. In order to produce learning situations where creative learning is achieved, teachers have to create trustful atmospheres where students are allowed to think and discuss without critical evaluation of the teacher. It is also important to create practical exercises in which theoretical models are processed and connected to observations. During many years we have tried to develop courses in science with the goal to promote students to become independent learners and explorers out of their own prerequisites. Different methods and designs of teaching have been investigated and the variation of the student’s creative learning was observed. To continue this development of we here are investigating a chemistry course. Chemistry involves considerable amounts of abstract thinking. Further, as many students had bad experiences from school this was a challenge. 17 preservice teacher students were trained by one teacher to become independent and creative in their own learning of chemistry. The course of 10 full days over three weeks included practical activities mixed with discussions in groups followed by discussion with the teacher in order to connect theory with practical exercises. The students wrote short reflections after each week answering the questions: What do you take with you from your own learning processes and/or in meeting other’s learning processes? What surprised and/or amazed you most? The three reflections where analysed by qualitative methods scoring demonstrations of professional development, process thinking and learning processes. Our results showed that students negative to chemistry in the beginning of the course changed their opinion and enjoyed thinking of phenomena in everyday life with chemical perspectives. All students also expressed the importance of practical exercise and group discussions in their own learning. The reflections contained detailed chemical explanations, using concepts in a proper way, describing their learning processes during the course. They also used their experiences from the course when they discussed how they will design teaching situations in chemistry as future teachers. Thus, the design of the course promoted creative thinking and deepened their understanding of chemistry.

Keywords: Preservice teacher students, chemistry education, creative learning, student reflections, learning processes;