REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
There says that an effective science teaching is concern in having standard student learning as possible that is without spending too much on laboratory tests and experiments as there is right option to have the needed adjustments in teaching science through using alternative materials that are home-based that can be easily completed in lieu of shaping student experiences that encourage them to perform better in laboratory experiments during science class activities. Thus, and suggested that, flexibility in teaching science and learning such use of alternative tools can possibly be given in useful ways within home-based resources that is available for easy learning as well as interaction between science teachers and their students with such support provided for using alternative experiments of inexpensive costs.
Aside, there should be the improved access to science tools and resources of use as there can be provision of system services and the development of materials and resources that is of good cost for buying in catering to diverse experiment approach respectively. The opportunities for applying home-based alternative materials gives better criticism on student as the science classes are to be practical in terms of experimentation process and its actualization. In a way, certain online materials found in the web will allow appropriate delivery as a form of alternative materials that can be in book style as well as in interactive mode in terms of having formative evaluation in offering better communication channel for teacher and student interactions.
Understanding of teacher-focused science laboratories
It can be true that amidst basic schools, having a science lab is barely unique as for example public schools in the Philippines have laboratories where the grouping of students are in clusters of interaction with others. The students can be trained to use home-based alternative tools for learning science with imperative strategies in demonstrating success on science projects, as the students will be involved in hands-on activities and do interaction ways in science lessons but such outcomes can be predestined. There may be some cosmetic interaction between teacher and student, and even some superficial freedom allowed for independent research; nonetheless, the results of experiments and projects seldom conflict with teacher expectations. What passes for student learning is really nothing more than student work shadowing the self-fulfilling prophecy of the instructor. Students are not factored into the equation at all because learning is assumed to have little relationship to their contributions. Thus, in realizing home-based alternative tools for science classes, the students must have the opportunity to shape the content, flow and direction of lessons. In other words, they must become actively involved in the process of learning. Teachers cannot be the hub around which the classroom rotates. They must be responsible for a supportive classroom environment which allows for discovery, discussion, wisdom and cohort of alternative ideas as science institution in the Philippines, there can be cases that students are allowed to become full partners in the learning loop being recognized as vital part of learning in science lab which recognizes certain quality in student achievements.
Moreover, traditional science labs are designed to conform to the special interest of the teacher coordinator. Once established, they tend to be restricted by the vision of the architect of the lab, never generating learning beyond fixed, limited precepts and that by doing things right, there obscure the opportunity to do the right things. Quality education is immersed in the concept of doing the right things. The science lab in the Philippines should be dedicated to developing a passion for the quest for quality in each student that encourage students to understand that learning is ongoing despite materials used are just home-based and the journey never stops and the tools they acquire will enable each of them to become lifelong learners. The path they cut on their journey using these tools of knowledge will become the roadmap for a new generation of learners who desire to do the right things. The classroom teacher helps determine the color of the folder used by individual students and encourages students to work in teams to complete assignments in completing lab experiments. There say that success is a journey and not a destination and the science teacher must become an advocate for a student-centered curriculum which demands improved student achievement, an enriched school culture and participative community, necessary to help the school stretch its emerging vision.
Furthermore, there must acknowledge that as stewards of education institution, people can prepare students for a life, fluid and variable being shaped by learning. The student classroom should be the world, possibilities of life should not be limited by rote learning dictated by teachers who do not have the capacity to understand that students are their customers, but should be celebrated by educators who envision a multiplicity of life experiences which can be valued and applied to real life. being stuck behind a teacher’s desk is a dangerous place from which to view humanity, schools should not be closed compounds, akin to prisons, with closed walls and heavy gates. Schools should be the marketplace for ideas. There must create compelling vision for quality schools as the latter will be at the cutting edge of an exciting new paradigm.
Amicably, science has played an outstanding role in our life in recent years and is now changing our entire existence in such important aspects as health, transportation, communication and power. The social, economic and political implications are both national and international in character. There is ample need to be familiar with applications and implications of principles of science to be able to live effectively in a technological world and to be intelligent concerning the complicated problems with which they must deal as citizens in the democratic society. Philippines regardless of geographic location and race should experience a broad and balanced education which will equip students with good occupation of reasonable opportunity for growth and social usefulness as well as stimulate curiosity and cultivate the ability to think rationally and develop ethical values which should under gird life in democratic society.
Need for Experiences with Apparatus and Materials
Because the modern school is concerned not only with providing a background of functional subject matter but also with the development of individuality and responsible participation in our democratic society, experiences and activities for students become increasingly important. While it may seem to some that firsthand contact with the apparatus and materials of science is obviously essential, there are many present-day schools where the practice belies this belief. In many classes the use of textbooks and recitation procedures is stressed, while the use of demonstrations, laboratory work and student projects is minimized, if not lacking entirely. Students read and talk about scientific devices and procedures rather than actually work with them. This is particularly true in general science classes where many teachers and administrators make no apologies for having limited facilities and equipment for direct student experience in the classroom.
The science educators have long recognized the advantage of firsthand, direct experience. This is exemplified particularly in science where many of the concepts, as well as the techniques and devices, are new to the beginner in the field. These new terms, principles and materials are made meaningful by actual use. The laboratory method which has been the very essence of science for many years has been deemed so important that its use has been carried into many other areas of study. Psychologists have determined, on the basis of findings over a period of years, that learning by doing has many advantages over mere reading about principles, concepts and applications. Student experience with actual materials and phenomena is desirable and necessary in order to understand important facts and principles as the laboratory experiments may be made firsthand experience.
Principles and Applications
Many principles of science are quite abstract to high-school students who are meeting them for the first time. Students try to learn important laws and generalizations by memorizing them. Well-planned and executed demonstrations and firsthand experiences in the laboratory can make important principles and applications more meaningful than oral or written explanation. Perhaps it should be pointed out that demonstrations, laboratory work, projects and field trips in themselves do not automatically make principles and applications meaningful to the student. Carefully used, they give meaning to what would be otherwise vague abstractions. Laboratory experiments can provide for all these if carefully planned and carried out wherein students participate with the teacher in planning the laboratory activities, the situation calls for initiative and resourcefulness on their part. The usual laboratory situation with limited equipment necessitating that two or more work together on laboratory experiments engenders cooperation. The use of student projects and special reports is another opportunity for initiative and resourcefulness.
In handling any apparatus whether with experiments, demonstrations, or special projects, initiative must be shown in thinking through the particular materials needed, in setting up the apparatus, in improvising and substituting for parts which are not available, and in adjusting and repairing the apparatus which can be related to the problem of critical thinking working with apparatus necessitates thinking in solving the problem for which the apparatus is being used. Thus, students may not learn equally well from books as some of them are interested in the handling of apparatus. Interests which students have in radio, electricity, chemistry, machinery, and the like may well be discovered, explored, and encouraged in connection with activities involved in demonstrations, laboratory work, and projects. One of the advantages of science teaching is the range of activities which can be utilized to provide a wide variety of teaching procedures and motivations. There should be little excuse for monotony in the science classroom.
The use of apparatus and materials in such situations as dramatic demonstrations, silent demonstrations and experiences in critical thinking, visual material, auditory presentation and special exhibits suggests something of the range and interesting variety which the science teacher has as resources. The visual or auditory device becomes the procedure to illustrate principle and its applications and in some case, handmade slide may be used with a demonstration, a motion picture with a discussion, a recording with a laboratory experiment, or a filmstrip with a student report. Since there has been some lack of agreement in terminology and associated meaning, it is desirable to indicate briefly what is meant by each of these five types of experiences with apparatus and materials.
Science Laboratory Work-out
The school laboratory work usually involves the carrying out of experiments by groups as there is a problem for which an answer is being sought. While in many cases laboratory manual or workbook is followed, such need not be the case. Frequently, students in the class work on the same experiments at the same time, although it is often very desirable that more than one kind of experiment be undertaken by different students or groups. In an individual laboratory experiment each student manipulates the apparatus and carries out the steps necessary to find answers to definite questions. Laboratory experiments in school may be quantitative or qualitative. Examples of the latter include the preparation of hydrogen and a study of its properties and the connection of bells or lights in series and in parallel, with the advantages and limitations of each. Examples of quantitative experiments include the determining of the linear coefficients of expansion of different metal rods, or finding the percentage of acetic acid in a sample of vinegar.
The Utilization of Non-expensive Materials and Apparatus
In many cases, the most important outcome in connection with apparatus and materials is obtained from the experience in their use, even when the results are quantitative; thus, the equipment is not necessarily elaborate or expensive. While some pieces of apparatus such as balances, voltmeters, and motors should be purchased, much of the experimental work may be carried out satisfactorily with inexpensive equipment improvised from materials from the home, ten-cent store, or salvage store. Students can bring materials and devices from the home: tin cans, wire from discarded devices, motors, pumps, bottles, parts of autos or tractors, boxes, radios, and the like. There are psychological advantages in the use of familiar materials and in the fact that they have been supplied by the students themselves. Such inexpensive equipment is often more effective than commercially made equipment. The latter, with its fine finish, elaborate arrangement, technical appearance, and its working parts obscured, is often less realistic and functional than that made from familiar material. Good learning experiences are a desirable outcome of the planning, improvising, and repairing of homemade equipment. Here, too, are opportunities for providing for the varied individual differences and interests. Suggestions for numerous homemade and improvised devices are given in Part Two. It should be pointed out that some good commercially made apparatus is also desirable and necessary; this is particularly true where corresponding equipment cannot be made easily. A supply of usable commercial equipment should be built up in a school over a period of years. A wide range of desirable student experience can be obtained only when there is an adequate supply of both commercial and homemade equipment.
Need for Readily Available Resources
In providing better student experiences requires careful planning. Since there is no blueprint for procedure, plans for experiences for each group of students have to be made anew each time. The same courses cannot be provided for different students year after year using the same assignment, lab experiment, motion pictures, guide sheets, and tests, and really provide experiences appropriate to their varying needs for a wealth of materials, procedures, devices and activities with which to plan. One way of making available such a wealth of materials and suggestions is by means of resource units. While these have undergone some changes in theory and practice in the past few years in the hands of different authors and teachers, 6 the fundamental idea involved is simple and functional. As the term suggests, a resource unit is simply the accumulation in one place of all the resources which could be used for teacher and student experiences in connection with one of the major units into which the course or area has been organized. There constitute or represent the resources available, from which choice could be made in providing the experiences for a particular group of students. Not all the specific possibilities assembled in the resource unit would be utilized at any one time, but they would be at hand for possible use to meet the wide range of interests and needs of different groups. The resource units should be continuously evolving as alternative home-based materials should be added when the unit is not being taught and unworkable material discarded. The use of references, free and low-cost pamphlets, articles from current magazines, films and recordings, are alternative resources which keep the unit in continuous growth and the teacher on the alert to keep it growing and up to date.
The experimentation can occur in the laboratory only to the extent that students work in terms of problems which they feel. It does not matter that the problems which they attempt to solve have been problems which students before them have worked upon and problems the answers to which the teacher knows. The important point is that the student work on a problem the answer to which he does not know. Students can approach such problems intelligently as they participate in isolating and refining problems and planning for their solution. The implications of such planning include provisions for different problems for different students, different procedures to be used with different problems, and a wealth of resources to be used in the problem solution. The sources of problems for laboratory investigation may be found in a variety of activities of the individual and of the group. The problems may arise in class discussions or in project work. They may arise as a result of the student's school experience outside his work in science. They may come up in the student's reading or as a result of previous laboratory investigation. The sensitive teacher will be aware of those problems having implications for laboratory investigation and may make mention of the fact at the time that they arise, with an indication that they may be profitably investigated in the laboratory. Where a laboratory is to serve a single subject area, such as chemistry, it is necessary that primary provision be made for the techniques and procedures of that field. In spite of such specialization there should be at least demonstration facilities of a quite general nature not only because of the desirability of being able to use the room for classes in other fields but also because of the enrichment which can be provided in any particular field by calling upon the content of another field.
The need for a wide variety of facilities within a single laboratory is even more imperative. In those cases where the laboratory serves not only the chemistry and physics classes but the general science classes as well, it is essential to make provision for the specialized fields as well as the more general ones. For example, there should be adequate equipment and supplies for many students to have experience with electricity at the same time. Similar provisions are necessary in other areas where a number of students are to be served. In addition to such provisions of a general nature, there should be facilities to serve the needs of the general science classes. A major aspect of the work of the science teacher is to provide equipment, and to keep it in working order. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to meet the needs of young people in their study of science without physical facilities. The provision of adequate equipment is a continuous process since there are always different approaches and new devices to be utilized. Equipment companies are generally sensitive to the need for better apparatus and devote considerable time and expense to the provision of new equipment; keeping abreast of these developments requires continuous effort on the part of the teacher. In addition to this effort there remains the problem of maintenance of equipment. Repairs and adjustments are regular operations in a laboratory, while the devising of equipment to meet particular needs furnishes still further demand for competence on the part of the teacher. The science teacher should be sensitive to the needs of the students and to the general conditions of the science laboratory. Finally, the science teacher should have administrative ability adequate to the needs of his situation and he should be familiar with the administrative policies and procedures of the school, particularly as they have bearing on the work in science.
PROVISION OF ALTERNATIVE LAB MATERIALS
The nature of the materials to be obtained for science teaching depends upon the general nature of the work of the school. Where the procedures are of formal nature, the problem of securing supplies and equipment is rather standardized and not difficult. Standard catalogs from the equipment companies list and describe nearly all materials needed for the traditional work in science. In addition to these catalogs of equipment and supplies, there are lists of minimum equipment which have been compiled by various companies and by teachers. Such minimum lists are based generally upon materials supplied by the companies compiling the lists. A science program depending upon such a list of minimum equipment and materials may place little or no dependence upon the local resources. It has the advantage of being relatively easy to administer if the finances are adequate. However, it is not likely to be closely related to the needs and interests of the students and to the activities of the community. Many students may not be challenged by instruction which is so standardized. Recognition for their contributions to the development of teaching equipment should be given to the apparatus companies which have been responsible for the development of functional and tested apparatus. In many instances various units are planned so that pieces of equipment may be purchased with the assurance that it work satisfactorily. The science teacher can learn much about equipment and its use and about various ways of demonstrating and guiding the work of the students.
Alternative Source
The science teacher should explore fully the possibilities of obtaining both equipment and supplies from sources in or near the community. Such sources serve to provide equipment and supplies very quickly, eliminating the delay involved when orders must be placed with companies at a distance. Not only is it then unnecessary to wait, but also the materials may be examined for suitability, quality, quantity, size and relative cost. A further advantage in making local purchases is that they may be negotiated through the students, thus giving students a more active part in building up the resources in the science field. Their participation in this activity makes their work more meaningful and gives them a greater pride in the school. An advantage of local purchasing not to be overlooked is the developing of a closer relationship between the school and the community. The public thus learns something of the work of the school, and the students in turn learn of the relationship between the school and the community. The lists which follow are suggestive only. Local sources differ considerably from one community to another; thus the science teacher should visit systematically all the potential sources of his community, noting what each source have to offer. The equipment and materials obtainable in each of these vary greatly, but the list following each source is suggestive of the resources which the science teacher may expect to find.
Research Evidence for Alternative Experiment Materials
There explores the effectiveness of improvising home-based available materials for teaching science through chemistry in the Philippines within cases for culture of improvisation for teaching the sciences in the region. The scarcity and cost of imported materials for teaching science has remained a major challenge to teaching sciences in developing countries, and the fact that many teachers from developing countries tend to wait for materials before they can teach continuously for science education in provinces. In the experiment study, second year students from three public high schools were sampled to determine whether there will be a significant difference in their performance when taught using expensive materials compared to when taught using home-based substitutes. The study reveals that whereas their attitudes towards alternative materials may not be as positive as their attitudes towards expensive materials, their performances did not differ when taught as they were unaware of which material was home-based or not.
The result of this study proved that science education will flourish if teachers and probably other developing countries can begin to improvise local materials for science instruction. One of the problems confronting science teachers for instance in the Philippines, is a lack of materials for science teaching and insufficient money to acquire certain desired materials used for lab exercises. There is a general acknowledgement of the lack of resources is a genuine problem in teaching science in the country and that resourceful teachers need to look for alternatives that can help them carry on with their work (1991,1988;1988). In the absence of ideal resources, the teachers would improvise. Another issue pertinent to this research is the need for science students in developing countries to begin to see science, especially chemistry, as an everyday practical reality, not just as a set of scientific procedures and activities with no relationship to real life. Students often tend to see chemistry and other sciences as hard to understand and its core ideas as abstract and remote from everyday life (1999). This means that more should be done to make science friendlier and more real to them. It is important to emphasize here that an understanding of science should empower students to engage in discussions and decision-making processes that see science as part of everyday social issues ( 2003). Even what scientists call symbolic representations, which characterize chemistry learning, have been described as a major vehicle for viewing the world (2000; 1991; 1997; 1997).
Improvisation in teaching deals with making judgments about what to do with a piece of material or equipment in the classroom to solve a scientific or technological problem (1975; 1982; 1984). It means finding alternatives that would still function as the unavailable ideal resource. Some writers in developing countries have asserted that this process of improvisation should become part of the teacher education programs. (1983) defined improvisation as the act of using alternative materials and resources to facilitate instruction whenever there is a lack or shortage of some specific firsthand teaching aids. The goal is to help teachers learn to design and construct materials and resources that would enhance their functions in the absence of the regular materials. Thus, (2003) addressed the fact that teacher education candidates seem to develop a limited ability to use science in discussing and arguing a complex environmental issue as the phenomenon as possibly stemming from their lack of a firm conceptual framework about science. When teachers are trained in contexts where the practical and experiential aspect of chemistry is omitted due to the unavailability of imported processed materials and equipments, it becomes practically impossible for such teachers to develop for example, practical conceptual framework about science through chemistry class.
Furthermore, (1989) suggested that improvisation becomes an area of specialization in teacher education and educational technology courses. This perspective is in line with other recent theories of teacher professional development. These theories focus on seeking a broader teacher education curriculum that goes beyond ‘’concepts of content and reproduction which tend to not empower teachers by rendering them unreflective and compliant consumers and reproducers of good knowledge’’ (2003; 1994; 1998). Therefore, Improvisation in science education is of a paramount importance in developing countries and (1979) saw that the improvisation in science education as involving role substitution or role simulation as the improvisation should involve adaptation or modification of original materials and equipment to get them to perform new functions in the laboratory.
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