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- Bed Foundation Phase 90102
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- University Of South Africa (Unisa)
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LSK3701Exam prepiration
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Previous exam questions and answers
Previous assignment questions and answers
Note: Previous module code –
Note: Watch videos online in the units folder on My Unisa and read the
notes, it will greatly help you understand the different concepts. See
some general points about exam.
1.10 SELF-ASSESSMENT QUESTIONS
1.1 Explain in your own words
a) what is meant by scientific literacy
b) how the South African curriculum has been organised to develop it
1.2 Explain in your own words what is meant by
a) the nature of science
b) how a teacher’s understanding of the nature of science will direct his/her teaching
of science
1.3 In your view, how can inquiry-based learning activities contribute to the
development of learners’ understanding of the nature of science? Give a relevant
example from your own experience.
1.4 Explain the role of teacher questioning and learner predictions and explanations
in an inquiry-based lesson, with specific reference to conceptual change in the
learning of science.
1.5 Describe the three components of scientific concepts, according to Lieto (2014).
1.6 Discuss how the learning of scientific concepts takes place, according to
a) Carey (2009)
b) Gopnik and Wellman (2012)
c) Mareschal (2016)
1
,Self-evaluation questions: 1.1 – 1.2
Today we continue with a discussion on the self-evaluation questions at the end of
the units as revision for the exam.
In the previous section I went through the revision questions of unit 6. Today we turn
to unit 1.
In questions like these it is not easy to answer with no mark allocations.... but let’s
try. In this page we look only at 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 as they are based on scientific
literacy and nature of science. These two ideas form the basis of why we teach
science, which is to develop scientific literacy and children's ideas of the Nature of
Science (NOS).
Scientific literacy is described by 4 points which you should put into your own words.
The first point is about having, developing and using science knowledge. If you
watch USA news, you may remember that in 2020 Donald Trump suggested that
people drink bleach to kill the Covid-19 virus. That means he has no knowledge of
the virus, and how bleach works, he does not care to find out properly and therefore
does not use science knowledge to solve problems. He does not show scientific
literacy.
The second point is that science is a human endeavour. People do science, the
researchers and doctors who try to find vaccines and cures for Covid 19 are people
that follow the scientific method to verify their results.
People with scientific literacy are aware of how science shapes our world, for
example we understand how scientists’ knowledge of airborne viruses have
impacted our lives with us now all wearing masks. Those that did not wear masks did
not understood the knowledge we have of the air-born virus (or do not care).
The 4th point is, a scientifically literate person is willing to think about their
knowledge from science and engage as a good citizen. Again, knowing about the
virus and how it is transmitted, and then not wearing a mask shows "poor"
citizenship.
I think that it would be best to answer this question with an example as I have. If it is
4 marks, then write the four points in your own words. if it is 8 marks, then explain
each point with an example. Also look at the words that are used... explain means
give some details. List means just give the points.
The second question is about the curriculum and how it is organised to develop
scientific literacy. There are three main components of the curriculum and that is
scientific knowledge, science process skills and science attitudes and values.
Now onto the Nature of Science.
The nature of science (what is science?) is that it is forever growing our knowledge
and understanding of our world. Again Covid 19 is a very good example of how our
knowledge of the Covid 19 virus was first based on how all viruses behave, and
slowly researchers and doctors got to understand how Covid 19 was different to
others (and how each variant is also slightly different). Because of how Covid-19 is
different to just the flu virus, we went into lockdown levels. Knowledge about
numbers of cases in different areas of our country allowed the medical leaders to
know where to build extra field hospitals, send PPE's etc.
Again there are points that are made about the NOS. Depending on the mark
allocation, it will focus how much you write and explain. Reading through and
2
,understanding the last 9 points are important I would think. It says that there are
scientific methods that are followed to develop an understanding of the phenomenon
under research. That we base our initial research on the knowledge we have at the
moment (you have to start with some understanding) and that knowledge and
understanding is built on through time. Our knowledge grows as we look at the data
and interpret it. The data does not give us the answers.... we need to interpret it. And
lastly we need to communicate our findings for all humanity to develop
understanding, and build on this knowledge.
So the idea about NOS is not that it is knowledge to be learnt, but knowledge and
understanding that is developed over time by investigating and interpreting and
communicating. It is this "nature" that we want to copy in our classrooms.
We can copy this "nature" of science if we teach science through inquiry. The
knowledge of a teacher of the NOS will focus a teachers teaching of science through
inquiry because it is based on finding out about a science idea, talking about and
developing understanding and then communicating understanding. (Question 1.2 b)
Self-evaluation questions: 1.3- 1.5
Linked to that is question 1.3.
How can inquiry based lessons develop learners' understanding of the NOS. Here
the question says give an example. Start by looking at the 4 functions of teaching
and learning science through inquiry. Inquiry is about developing science concepts
and skills, developing an understanding of how we know science (through
investigating) which is what the NOS is. Now here it will probably be a good idea to
think about your assignment 2 as an example. You have done a lot of research on a
specific topic and should be able to use that example of how that theme you planned
will develop learners’ science concepts, skills and knowing how science works. I will
leave you to revise through your assignment 2's to use throughout the exam.
Today the focus of revision is on concepts and conceptual development (or
conceptual change). (It is conceptual change because during development the
concepts change from a naive understanding to a more scientific understanding)
I like to think about concepts at the same time as looking at the information
processing model which comes in unit 2. But I have a blog that I really like for an
overall view of learning.
https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2019/04/24/working-memory/
The notes from the blog are 90 pages so it is best to scroll through the blog....
When we try and figure out what concepts are, we are trying to figure out what is
happening in the brain. What is happening between the information that comes from
the senses that is focused on because the person is motivated to do so. When
motivated, then thinking happens in working memory. It is the interchange between
working memory, represented as a desk, and long-term memory represented as a
filing cabinet where concepts develop and change from being very simple,
unconnected with few links to a more complex concept with more links (more
connections) between more ideas or representations. Figure 1.4 gives a good idea of
how this happens. Now this interchange between long term memory and working
memory is controlled by the Executive Function. The EF controls the encoding
(putting into folders in long term memory) and remembering (taking out of folders
and putting in working memory).
3
, But let’s start with question 1.5 first. Concepts have been described in so many
ways, but in this module, we focus on the three kinds of concepts as explained by
Lieto (2014). Why is that, well because the three types of concepts, prototype,
exemplar, and theory, give us a good idea of what kinds of activities we should give
learners. We must make use of definitions of the concept, the characteristics of the
concept, through many diagrams and visual aids. This is for prototype development.
Then we use further examples of that concept - building on the exemplars. Now the
concept is getting more elaborate and scientific. Then (or at the same time,
depending on the complexity) we can develop a scientific theory of the concept.
Have a good read through the notes on concepts and make sure you can use the
examples given (and think of your own - maybe using your assignment 2 - always try
and have examples ready to explain for the exam).
Let’s now go up to questions 1.4.
If you understand the information processing model and its link to concepts and
conceptual change, then it will be easier to explain the role of questioning. It is also a
good idea to know and understand the bootstrapping process at this stage. But
questioning of teachers focuses the attention and engages working memory. While
the child is thinking about the answer, the child is retrieving or remembering from the
folders in long term memory. So the child can now predict the answer to the question
(or problem). When the child has to explain his/her answer, he/she needs to
"organise" the ideas in working memory and re-organise the folders in long term
memory. It is only when learners are engaged in thinking where there is this interplay
between working memory and long term memory that conceptual understanding will
develop.
In this page we revise the ideas of researchers in the field of conceptual
development, namely Susan Carey, Allison Gopnik, Lieto and Mareschal. Susan
Carey and Alison Gopnick write extensively and you can Google their names and
see what they do. In our notes, we focus on Susan Carey and her ideas of
conceptual change through bootstrapping.
Also in our notes we look at Gopnik's ideas of causal reasoning and more accurate
intuitive theories.
And lastly, we look at the idea of Executive Function according to Mareschal. Lieto
tells us about different kinds of concepts.
Let’s start with Carey and bootstrapping. This whole idea of bootstrapping tells us a
lot of important points about learning by developing concepts. It tells us it is a long
and slow process of reorganising the ideas in our brain, in other words the
organising of the folders in long term memory. That reorganisation happens through
linking to words. How do we develop an understanding of what the word means, or
what the word "represents"? The most important point about the idea of
bootstrapping is that we must teach using the word/s for concepts. If we do not use
word such as evaporation, antennae, compound eyes, fur, etc learners will never
really get a chance to develop an understanding of these because they will not have
those words to express themselves while they reorganise their understanding. So
learning through language is an important characteristics of bootstrapping. The other
important point is that the brain is not an empty filing cabinet .... there are already
folders there, holding naive ideas that are not scientific, not precise. Then through
many bootstrapping activities where the school curriculum has inbuilt activities that
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