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Section 2

Teaching, Learning and Assessing Science

The quality of interactions between teachers and learners is the critically important feature of effective teaching.

Effective teaching, learning and assessment comprises a wide range of important and interacting features. These can be gathered under four key organising principles that lie at the heart of effective learning and teaching and that are widely accepted as the basis of good practice. They are concerned with teachers:

     making learning clear for the learner
     using a variety of approaches
     giving and receiving clear, regular feedback
     monitoring attainment and progress in learning.

Learning in science

Pupils come to science activities with a number of ideas already formed from previous experiences. They are early attempts to make sense of the world around them and as such they must be valued. Since science is frequently at odds with common sense' these ideas will often be limited to concrete, observable features and may be inconsistent with the currently accepted theories of science.


The focus of science education is to find out what the learners think and then to provide learning experiences that help them to consider and modify their ideas and to develop further their scientific understanding. It is essential to consider the pupils' ideas as the starting point for science activities. To modify and change these alternative ideas and misconceptions it is necessary for pupils to become consciously aware of their own ideas and to have these ideas challenged and debated. Meaningful learning occurs when pupils construct their understanding by modifying their existing ideas in the
It is essential to consider the pupils' ideas as the starting point for science activities.
light of new insights gained from scientific investigations. Thus, science may be seen as an active process involving personal construction of meaning and understanding.

During their scientific activities pupils should be provided with opportunities to try out, challenge, change or replace their ideas about how things are, thus developing more scientific understanding through their own ideas and experiences.

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