The Effect Of Green Chemistry Experiments On Environmental Values And Knowledge And Chemistry Concepts Among Pre-Service Teachers

Proses pengajaran dan pembelajaran yang menekankan pembentukan nilai menghargai alam sekitar merupakan kriteria utama untuk mencapai status pendidikan untuk perkembangan lestari. Pengetahuan pedagogi memainkan peranan penting dalam proses memupuk nilai, kemahiran, gambaran dan kepercayaan secara bermakna. Justeru, guru-guru seharusnya diberi pendedahan tentang isu-isu alam sekitar semasa serta cara mengabungjalinkan isu-isu alam sekitar dalam proses pengajaran. To achieve the status of education for sustainable development, the teaching and learning must accomplish in bringing changes in environmental values of the students. Pedagogical knowledge plays an important role in the process of conveying values, skills, perspectives and ethics meaningfully. Hence, teachers need to be educated with knowledge of environmental issues and ways it can be incorporated into their teaching

A BRIEF REVIEW OF THE COMPLEXITIES OF TEACHING AND LEARNING CHEMICAL EQUILIBRIUM WITH SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO MALAYSIA

The purpose of this study was to review the extant literature on chemical equilibrium research in high school chemistry. The review involved understanding of the nature of chemical equilibrium, particularly about chemical reactions not going to completion, the reversibility of chemical reactions and the idea of dynamic equilibrium. Associated with these understandings was the derivation of the Equilibrium Law and the significance of the equilibrium constant followed by the use of Le Chatelier’s Principle including the limitations of this principle. The review then focused on the common alternative conceptions associated with the chemical equilibrium concept. The study next considered these features in the Malaysian context. For this purpose, the researchers formulated an instructional program relevant to the Malaysian Higher School Certificate curriculum that was implemented over 11 hours with 56 high-achieving students in Year 12 from a private secondary school. To evaluate students’ understanding of chemical equilibrium concepts after instruction the Chemical Equilibrium Conceptual Test-1 (CECT-1) was administered after instruction. The test consisted of 10 two-tier multiple-choice items that were adapted from previously developed questionnaires. The results indicated very limited understanding of the relevant concepts. The total scores in the CECT-1 ranged from 0 to 9 (out of a maximum score of 10) with a mean score of 5.04. Less than 50% of students correctly answered five of the 10 items. The findings suggest the need for teachers to address students’ preconceptions about chemical equilibrium concepts and use appropriate strategies to enable students to acquire scientifically acceptable understandings

Pre-Service Teachers' Understanding And Awareness Of Sustainable Development Concepts And Traditional Environmental Concepts

This paper discusses the findings from a survey conducted to investigate the level of awareness and understanding of traditional environmental concepts and sustainable development concepts among pre-service teachers. The survey involved 110 pre-service teachers enrolled in the chemistry teaching methods course. The student teachers were requested to complete a set of 20-item questionnaire on environmental knowledge. Awareness and understanding of concepts central to sustainable development is particularly significant for the pre-service teachers who are required to educate and promote education for sustainable development. Results of the study showed that the preservice teachers have a low level of awareness and understanding of concepts central to sustainable development compare to traditional environmental concepts. Recognising the importance of sustainability knowledge in leading sustainable lifestyle, the findings of this paper emphasise the need impart sustainable development knowledge through teaching and learning proces

Designing instrument to measure STEM teaching practices of Malaysian teachers

The remarkable upsurge in the attention for STEM education globally has inspired many countries including Malaysia to formulate STEM education policies to reform the existing segmented teaching of the four STEM subjects towards integrated teaching. One of the Malaysian government’s initiatives include establishing a framework as a guide for teachers to practise STEM teaching. This exploratory, mixed methods study aimed to explore Malaysian science and mathematics teachers’ perceptions to practise STEM teaching and develop a questionnaire to measure factors that explain their teaching practices. The interview findings identified teachers’ knowledge of interdisciplinary and related pedagogical strategies, challenges encountered in STEM teaching practices, and teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs to perform STEM teaching as factors that explain STEM teaching practices. Following that, a 33- item questionnaire was developed based on the qualitative findings. The results of exploratory factor analysis produced four distinct factors echoing the qualitative findings with 29 items, which were then validated using confirmatory composite analysis (CCA). CCA results in retaining all four factors and removing six items with lower loading values. Thus, the final version of the questionnaire consists of 23 items. The findings of this study were expected to benefit STEM advocates and educators globally. Additionally, the developed questionnaire would allow collective measurement of the factors that explain STEM teaching practices

Measuring stem teaching practices among Malaysian science, mathematics and design, and technology teachers

This study measures the level of application of STEM teaching practices among Malaysian science, mathematics, design, and technology teachers. The STEM teaching practices are categorized into four components- the six primary elements outlined in the Framework of STEM Integration in the Classroom, nature of STEM disciplines, approaches to teaching STEM disciplines, and twenty-first-century skills. STEM teaching practices are exhibited when the subject matter teachers execute cross-disciplinary STEM teaching in the classroom. The four components of practices measured through this study are inevitable to effectively implement cross-disciplinary teaching and enhance students' learning experience. This study used a cross-section survey design to gauge STEM teachers' teaching practices. For this purpose, a questionnaire consisting of 61 items was administered to the 300 primary and secondary STEM teachers identified using a random sampling method. The questionnaire had two sections: Section 1 contained 11 demographic items, and Section 2 had 50 items that used 5 points Likert scale to measure the practices. The findings reveal that STEM teachers apply the key elements of STEM Integration at a moderate level. The teachers exhibited low-level application of the nature of STEM disciplines. The teachers, on the contrary, exhibited high-level applications of STEM integration approaches and skills. The findings of this study can be the yardstick for measuring teachers' STEM teaching practices. This study also facilitates the curriculum developers and stakeholders to understand the level of STEM teaching practices of teachers and to accommodate them with necessary professional development programs

Raising awareness on solid waste management through formal education for sustainability: a developing countries evidence review

Solid Waste Management (SWM) is a multifaceted problem comprising political, socioeconomic, institutional, and environmental aspects. Due to exponential urban growth, it has become one of the most significant issues faced by urban spaces in developing countries. The gap in environmental knowledge among the youth and the old within developing countries contribute to ecological issues or waste management problems, resulting in unsustainable development, with important consequences in low-income countries. For that matter, a systematic review was conducted aiming to identify and analyse environmental knowledge, awareness, attitudes, and practice studies on SWM from 2010 to 2019 in developing countries. The evidence suggests that students at both secondary and tertiary levels have positive environmental attitudes, and high awareness of environmental issues, but there is a lack of practical education of teachers to guide students to put SWM into practice. Student’s low environmental knowledge is related to a deficiency in teachers’ practical experience in SWM for environmental sustainability. A relationship between teachers’ and students’ knowledge and attitudes towards SWM, as well as differences in awareness, attitude, and practices of SWM linked with education and age, were also found. This review also revealed that the lack of environmental education in most developing countries is caused by fragilities in practical environmental curricula of teachers to respond to modern-day environmental issues for sustainable development and cleaner production (CP). To bridge the knowledge gap between the youth and older people in SWM, environmental sustainability education should be integrated into schools at all levels within developing countries.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Environmental Citizenship in Primary Formal Education

The concept of Environmental Citizenship, as it has been developed in this project, calls for the development of specific awareness, attitudes, skills, behaviours and competences that need to be cultivated from early childhood for active civic participation. Primary formal education could provide opportunities for the achievement of these goals. In this chapter, we elaborate on how Environmental Citizenship, which provides the specifics of age and formal settings, could be approached and the educational strategies that could be recommended or avoided based on the existing literature. This chapter also provides an overview of the most important educational aims regarding the development of Environmental Citizenship in primary formal education. These include environmental sensitivity, a sense of justice, a basic understanding of ecological systems, necessary skills for the investigation of ecological and social phenomena, and action skills that relate to active participation in community issues. We suggest that successful educational interventions, integrated pedagogical approaches and key designing principles could promote Environmental Citizenship at primary schools. In addition, effective training and professional development programmes can equip teachers with the knowledge, values, skills and strategies necessary to implement Environmental Citizenship at this level