|Strategies and Methods for Teaching Values in the Context of Science and Technology (APEID - UNESCO, 1993, 61 p.)|
A teaching truism states that there is not one best strategy or approach to teach anything to anyone. This implies that the teacher must be ready to bring about a learning experience for the students through a carefully selected learning/teaching strategy, from a reservoir of strategies the teacher has been equipped with. It is therefore necessary to offer the science teacher an adequate pool of these strategies relevant to the development of the subject of and values in focus.
For values formation in science and technology, varying strategies may be used in the school, in the classroom, and outside the school. Values learned in school must be related, enriched and extended to the home and to the community. As such, the students' valuing experiences inside the classroom are continuously and consistently followed up outside the school through the provision of projects/activities that the students may do individually or in groups. Some of the strategies that have been used by participating countries are indicated below:
Experiential and Participatory Approach
This is a learning approach that maximises involvement and participation of the students through carefully planned activities prepared by the teacher. Some programmes call these activities 'structured learning experiences' which allow all the students to participate in, through individual or group activities.
The prepared learning activities put the students into some kind of experience, direct or simulated, for them to do their own introspection/reflection, to feel or react, or to determine consequent actions or decisions relevant to the learning situation. The experiential activity gives each student an opportunity to go through a process of valuing, understanding his feelings and thoughts about the situation and committing himself to a consequent action. Values, therefore, are not directly taught nor imposed, but the students are guided to 'catch' the values in the learning experiences.
Individual experiences in the activity may be shared with a small group for further clarification and understanding of their Earnings. Thus, within a specific lesson, each student would have been given an opportunity to be active either, on his own or with the group.
If values are to be infused with a subject content, strategies for integrating both the lesson content (e.g., science), and the values relevant to the content, are necessary. This approach calls for a flowing together of both the cognitive dimension of the lesson and the effective aspect of the values to be integrated. Some educationists call this the 'confluent approach'. It is aimed to develop simultaneously the two domains of learning in order to effect the third domain, which is the action, the actual manifestation of the learner's values.
This strategy has been reported by a member country (i.e. Philippines), as the ACES Strategy (Affective Cognitive Experiences for Selfintegration). Values integration is done purposively (not incidentally) and systematically (not sporadic) in order to develop simultaneously the cognitive content of the lesson and the affective/value component. The ACES strategy basically follows on the inductive or discovery methodology. It goes through four phases of learning: activity, analysis, abstraction and application. Basically, it makes use of the experiential learning approach and makes use of the strengths of the major approaches cited in the succeeding section.
Value Learning Strategies
In carrying out the first two listed approaches, there is a host of value learning strategies which were identified by the participants to be useful for values integration in science and technology. These included the following:
a) Values Clarification Strategies which aim to let the learners clarify their positions, thoughts and feelings about certain situations by going through the valuing processes of choosing, prizing and acting.
Learning activities for the valuing experiences may be in the form of group dynamics, co-operative learning, discussions, guided imagery, role playing, and many more.
Group dynamics and co-operative learning has been found to be very effective in encouraging students to learn openness, sharing, collaboration, self expression, conflict management, team building, group evaluation, leadership/followership, collective decision making, brainstorming skills, communication skills, group reporting, and group synthesizing, among others. These values are enhanced on top of the content of the lesson being developed.
Guided imagery or fantasy trip are techniques that allow the students to visualize or imagine scenarios, with all the sounds, smells, colours of things related to the learning activity.
This visualization technique is fast gaining ground because of its potency to stimulate creative thinking. It is considered one of the strategies aimed at developing the power of the right brain. In Science and Technology where more often than not, the left brain is stimulated, this strategy may be necessary for an initial development of a sense of aesthetics and the values of curiosity, harmony, peace, and transcendence.
b) Moral Development Strategies are premised on the theory that the values developed are based on the moral reasoning level or judgement of the person. Decision for action, therefore, is a function of the level at which the person judges whether that action is right or wrong.
This strategy engages the students to study the pros and cons of certain possible actions and their corresponding consequences before he/she makes any decision for final action.
(...) learning events. It is more appropriate to use issue-based activities involving local situations so as to allow for immediate and more meaningful experiences of the learners.
c) Values Analysis - a problem-solving type of strategy where the students identify a problem or purpose of the learning activity, gather evidence for positive and negative positions about the situations, and then make inferences and conclusions that will represent their convictions about the value-learning situations.
Individual or group analysis of news materials, local issues/situations, speeches, science reports, collages, etc., are corresponding learning events.
d) Values Inculcation - is known to be the oldest and most commonly used strategy. It is a direct teaching method through the use of lectures, reinforcement techniques, stories, poems, songs, games and simulation techniques. Multi-media (film-showing, tapes and slides) are identified to be very effective in inculcating/transmitting values concepts in Science and Technology.
There are many science concepts and values that can be directly taught from the lives of scientists. This can be presented to project the scientists as normal human beings who succeeded because of their qualities and values which they have developed through their hard work, persistence, devotion and genuine commitment.
Direct teaching through moralizing, however, is recognized to have limitations especially for adolescents who by nature are indifferent or react negatively to techniques of prodding, nagging and pure lecturing. Values inculcation strategies may be used more effectively, if these are preceded or accompanied by meaningful experiential and clarifying activities.
Face-to-Face Interaction with Resource Persons
In a subject like Science and Technology, there are many Yearnings, both for content and values, that may be achieved via community human resources. Community members involved in different occupations related to the lesson at hand may be tapped to provide the students a face-to-face interaction with them. Also, scientists available in the community would be able to give up-to-date information about a particular science lesson.
In values development, processing questions are helpful in making the students understand better their feelings and thoughts about the value being developed. These are effective processing questions asked by the teacher that relate to the personal experiences, observations, attitudes or personal feelings than cognitive questions such as the what, how or why of the concept. This is purposely done to appeal to the student's effective state to lead him to a certain commitment to characterize a certain value.
Modeling and the Silent Approach
Role modeling is accepted to be an excellent strategy. The teacher's personable ways, patience, devotion, guiding and accepting ways, often silent or non-verbal, get across to the students easily and effectively.
Structures, rules, regulations or school policies are all forms of 'silent teachers' that encourage the students to develop values of discipline, respect, prudence, responsibility and the like. These are training situations for them to live harmoniously in a macro-system, i.e., the society.
Outside the school, values learning may be enhanced with the use of stimulating and creative science activities.
Action Learning Strategies
These are activities that serve as enrichment or application of the value concepts learned in the classroom. Students may work in groups to plan together: (i) the purpose of the activity; (ii) things they need, people involved; (iii) task assignments; (iv) implementing mechanism; (v) getting support from outside; (vi) evaluating the activity and reporting. It is important to note that whatever the science activity/project may be, the teacher sees to it that he/she focuses on cognitive, effective and behavioural components in the planning, execution and evaluation of the activity.
These activities may be in the form of:
a) Community Reach-Out - such as a visit to under-privileged, depressed areas or to orphanages, places with victims of calamities, etc.
b) Social Action or Volunteer Work - which encourages students to assist in the hospitals, clinics or rural health centers, census work, health and nutrition projects.
c) Research and Project Work - on topics like honesty of vendors and their weighing scales in the markets, or projects involving greening backyards, cleaning rivers or experimental researches related to class lessons, projects on superstitious beliefs and scientific truths, projects on collections (e.g. insects, leaves, shells, flora and fauna).
d) Site Exposures or Field Trips - visiting polluted areas, factories, denuded forests, science parks, museums and science exhibitions.
e) Media Awareness Education, Peace Campaigns and the Like - such as conducting assemblies, forums, lectures aimed to raise the community's level of media awareness and to enjoin others to rally behind good and responsible media. Peace campaigns may also be done through poster-making, parades in the community, and essay writing contests.
In any form of learning, it is crucial to involve the parents who play a vital role in the learners' development. There is a meaningful learning atmosphere when the students know that their parents are concerned about their activities in the school. Guidance, support and direction help in reducing, if not eliminating, value confusion on the part of the students.
Science Club Activities
Science clubs may be encouraged to add value-laden activities through games; creative expression such as painting, drawing, drama productions; leadership training; camp outs; co-operative learning; team building, big brother/sister supportive relationships, science quizzes, exhibitions and fairs, debates and symposiums.
Materials for Further Learning
Students may be oriented to supplementary reading materials in science for the enhancement of their learning in school. Structured modules (e.g. Malaysia's) may be designed for self-learning or with the help of the parents or with specific groups (e.g. Learning Action Cells - LAC in the Philippines) as supplementary to what has been taken up in the classroom.
Teacher Training Strategies
Admittedly, values development and values integration in science and technology, require special teaching competencies in addition to the normally required skills of the science teacher. The teacher needs to recognize the significance and the crucial need for these programmes as demanded by the times.
Cognizant of this demand, teachers must be encouraged to take positive steps in updating themselves with the needed competencies in order to meet the demands.
The following are suggested for consideration in teacher training:
Teachers' Values Orientation or Formation
Teachers' value awareness level must be enhanced. They must understand their significant role in the values development of their students.
They must learn to direct themselves towards the values worthy of emulation by themselves.
Self-development with a direction to raise themselves to the higher level of values is the primary aim of these sessions. Consequently and naturally, commitment to act for the common good (for the family and others, concern for national and global value issues) are necessary components that may be included in this phase of teacher training.
Training in Learning/Teaching Strategies
Rather than leaving the teachers to select the strategies, it is important that they are made to understand the ethical and psychological principles that go with specific strategies previously described. Equally important is their ability to be flexible, resourceful, creative in the use of these strategies. They have to see the strengths and limitations of these approaches and strategies so that they may be able to adapt them appropriately in classroom settings.
It may be helpful to employ process-based training modalities so that the teachers learn the trade as they experience the processes that go with what is being learned. Participative learning is one effective strategy to actualize the maxim 'learning by doing'. Teachers are known to have a rich reservoir of experiences that can be shared and taken as good resources of new Earnings. Learning can proceed in a psychologically pleasant atmosphere with the values of openness, trust, acceptance, respect, sincerity elicited by learning activities such as group dynamics and other experiential training strategies.
Training in Materials Development
In the preparation for classroom teaching, there are instructional materials that the science teacher may need to help him/her in a more systematic and purposive values integration.
Unit plans in Science and Technology may be studied carefully to identify entry points for values integration and to determine which core values or related values may be integrated in specific topics.
Exemplar lesson plans for values integration may also be developed as one strategy to equip the teachers with skills/competencies to integrate values in their science lessons.
Activity sheets, stimulus materials for learning and structured learning episodes may be prepared. During the training, possible sources for these materials may be cited and strategies for the creation, modification, and adaptation may be illustrated to teachers so that they can think of ideas for developing good indigenous materials for value integration.
Training in Evaluation Strategies
The importance of evaluation cannot be overemphasized. If there is a need for training in cognitive assessment, more so with affective behaviour evaluation. This is because of the qualitative nature of the variable measured. Practicable techniques for classroom evaluation may be introduced to the teacher and other helpful strategies for validating classroom assessment may be added. Observation outside the classes, triangulating assessment techniques (parents, peers, teachers) may be workable. There are many non-traditional strategies for evaluation that the teacher can choose from, depending on the purpose of evaluation.
Certainly, the problem of equipping the teacher with the aforementioned competencies cannot be settled by traditional seminar lectures only, without coupling them with more dynamic training methodologies such as the following:
1. Use of multi-media techniques;
2. Group dynamics, group discussions, consensual decision-making, group workshops;
3. Sharing of teaching experiences and student observations;
4. Micro teaching/simulation;
5. Workshop seminars;
6. Observation of teaching demonstrations; and
7. Participatory/andragogical sessions for self-development.