New Perspectives in Science Education

Aesthetic experience has been described helping students to develop and use their understanding in other contexts outside the school, to develop their growing interest in science and to change their views of the world around them. In addition, teaching using aesthetic learning processes has been shown to be of importance for the students’ motivation, their engagement for learning and intercultural collaborations but very little has been done to investigate the actual learning of the students. Does the use of aesthetic expressions increase the students’ understanding of abstract models and theories in science? If this is the case, teachers in Swedish schools and preschools need competences to support students’ learning by using aesthetic expressions. The Swedish curriculum for compulsory school and preschool describes how “teaching should contribute to pupils developing the ability to discuss, interpret and produce texts and various forms of aesthetic expressions with scientific content”. We have used aesthetic learning processes based on art-based intermodal theory in a science course for preschool preservice teachers to investigate students’ learning. One year and a half after the course finished 44 students filled in a questionnaire with 6 questions and 4 statements. The students should indicate the best corresponding answers of the four statements. The results showed that half of the students agreed that the literature and theories in science giving a visual creative conformation, increased the understanding of different abstract models and concepts. It also increased the understanding of their own learning in relation to science and that aesthetic learning processes increased their interests for ideas of science. Students also expressed their learning in their answers showing that they could accurately describe scientific events using different scientific concepts included in their own more personal vocabulary sometimes also including aesthetic perspectives. Their use of personal aesthetic perspectives supports the learning of science. This is also supported by a questionnaire at the end of the course.

Keywords: aesthetic expression, science teaching, preschool preservice teachers, art-based intermodal theory;