by
Maria Kallery(Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece)
→
Europe/Stockholm
Klein Auditorium
Klein Auditorium
Description
Recent research suggests that during their early-years children begin to
construct science concepts of increasing complexity. From the educational
perspective, there is a growing realization that appropriate scientific
work can and should begin in infant classes as science in the early-years
is expected to contribute to the formation of a background which will lead
to better understanding of difficult scientific concepts and scientific
phenomena studied later in a more formal way.
To create quality teaching and learning opportunities for the young
learners, science education in the early childhood should be in
knowledgeable hands. Early- years teachers themselves need to have
science knowledge and pedagogical skills as well as the ability to
appropriately synthesize the two. However research has found that
non-science-specialist teachers, in their work, face several problems
related to different factors.
In this colloquium I will present reasons for exposing children to
science early in life, the aims of early-years education and ways
to approach it. I will review teachers' difficulties that have been
identified by many years of research and I will present the work of
our action research group composed of experienced early-years teachers
and of a specialist in science. This group developed and implemented
sequences of activities for the initiation of young children aged 4-6
into science. Finally I will present two of these sequences which concern
concepts and phenomena of physics and astronomy and I will discuss their
impact on children's learning and attitudes as well as on the teachers'
knowledge and practices.
