Design of knowledge models for teaching experimental sciences at university

Abstract

Teaching Experimental Sciences is a compulsory subject in the Bachelor’s Degree in Primary Education (BDPE). It belongs to the discipline of Education and to the field of 'Knowledge of the social and natural environment', and consists of a total of 24 ECTS, of which 6 ECTS correspond to 'Teaching Natural Sciences' (TNS). This subject is taught in the second half of the second year of the BDPE. The aim of this work has been the presentation of this subject as a Knowledge Model (KM) including interlinked Concept Maps (CCMM) with different levels of deepness of the developed topics; and to check if this new way of presentation has a positive effect on students’ satisfaction towards the learning and teaching process (LTP) by inquiring about the meaningful learning and coherency of the contents by using CCMM. Results show although it is difficult to change from the comfort zone at the beginning, when students start using Cmap Tools for creating their own Knowledge Models, they finish learning meaningfully and understanding better the whole subject, find it easier to study for the evaluation and get to the domain of Knowledge by reaching basic, general and specific skills.