PhD in Chemical and Materials Sciences

An insight into epistemological and didactic issues related with science teaching

An insight into epistemological and didactic issues related with science teaching

Academic year 2018/2019

Sommario del corso

• Program
• Notes
• Teaching tools

Program

The teaching will consist of 2 seminars to be held on March 15th and 29th 2019, from 2.30 to 6 p.m. at Auletta I, dept. Chemistry, Via Giuria 7, Torino. It is addressed to PhD students of the Science and Innovative Technology School. The course will be delivered in Italian; the final discussion will be carried out in English. Each seminar will tackle an issue related with science teaching, from an educational and/or epistemological perspective. Students’ achievements will be assessed through specific activities. For information and registration to the seminar, send a mail to: elena.ghibaudi@unito.it

Each seminar will tackle the following topics:

 The relationship between material reality and models in science education and in the experimental practice - Teacher: Elena Ghibaudi

Building up scientific knowledge implies an unceasing dialectic between the material world - which is the object of experimental investigations - and theories and models - that are formal constructions through which the material world is interpreted. The clarification of the relationships between empirical phenomena and formal systems that codify them (i.e. models) is a necessary premise to both teaching activity and experimental practice of any scientific discipline. There is strong evidence that this conceptual step is often overlooked or taken for granted in science teaching: such lack of attention contributes to make teaching ineffective. In fact, the message addressed to students is often misinterpreted, due to the lack of conceptual tools suitable for its decoding. This seminar will discuss the above-cited problems, with a special focus on the related educational aspects.

 Science teaching in the world: a comparison between European and American models - Teacher: Giuseppina Cerrato

Teaching practices, in particular those relative to scientific disciplines, among which Chemistry, proposed in schools and universities in Europe and the United States follow very different patterns: during the seminar some of the most common practices at world level will be thus presented, with particular attention to the Italian situation, as well as with some reference to the pedagogical models to which those practices are connected to.

Note

When: March 15th and 29th 2019 from 2.30 to 6 p.m. 

Where: Auletta I, dept. Chemistry, Via Giuria 7, Torino

• Teaching materials
• Exams and finals
• Go to Moodle
• Visit the forums