Contexts as Learning Catalysts for Students and Teachers: Approaches and Exemplary Results from the Projects Chemie im Kontext and CHEMOL

Abstract

In this chapter, Parchmann, Dunker, and Endres look at the value of the contexts as cthemistry learning catalysts for students and teachers. They presented two approaches; Chemie im Kontext and CHEMOL. Authors emphasized that the teaching tradition in German chemistry classrooms uses experiments as stimuli for chemistry learning. However, these experiments were often not connected to the experiences of students and to relevant topics. The projects Chemie im Kontext for secondary level and CHEMOL for primary level therefore use contexts from the students’ daily life or contexts connected to important socio-scientific issues to raise questions which can then be researched by students. The active learning of the students is supported by scaffolding material and a variety of teaching and learning methods, involving different roles for teachers and students. Authors also presented that active learning did not take place only in classroom but also within the meetings of teachers of different schools and chemistry educators from university. The chapter describes the structure of both projects, gives two examples of teaching and learning processes, and discusses results from qualitative and quantitative research studies.