Supervisors info:
Αποστολία Γαλάνη, Επίκουρη Καθηγήτρια ΠΤΔΕ, ΕΚΠΑ
Ευαγγελία Μαυρικάκη, Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια ΠΤΔΕ, ΕΚΠΑ
Κωνσταντίνος Σκορδούλης, Καθηγητής ΠΤΔΕ, ΕΚΠΑ
Summary:
According to many researchers, storytelling is an appropriate teaching tool for introducing scientific concepts to many educational levels and subjects, as well as stories are easily captured in listener's memory. Besides, storytelling, as an alternative teaching way in natural sciences, can stimulate their interest through effective and coherent content. Thus, the plot of a narrative can incorporate all those scientific concepts that are expected to learn students. Science-based storytelling has the potential not only to create a sense of curiosity but also to help students understand better. For this reason, as a case study, we selected the topic of karst caves, which lies between others in the fields of the Science (Geography, Geology, Physics, Biology and Chemistry) and of the Education. Although karst caves are part of Greece’s geological history, they are not taught and extensively mentioned in the Primary and Secondary Geography Education Curricula. It is worth noting that karst caves are unique and non-renewable resources, with significant geological, biological, recreational and economic value. Moreover, they are part of the cultural heritage of a place. In this research, we utilized the theoretical potential of story writing, to investigate whether pre – teachers can create a complete scientific story about karst caves and if an effective didactic transformation of scientific concepts was achieved through their stories. For the purpose of our research we designed and implemented a teaching approach about karst caves to 100 pre-service teachers. The content analysis method was used to investigate both teachers' prior knowledge of karst caves and their ability to write a successful scientific story by incorporating and transforming the scientific concepts. Questionnaires and science stories were analyzed in the same predefined categories to describe and evaluate teachers' responses.
