Making Science Become More Real
Teaching science and math can at time seem to be a very challenging task. With all the theories and content to cover it can be difficult to create meaningful experiences for students to understand the importance of learning all the topics that educators need to cover. In traditional classrooms there simply is not enough time to always be able to produce lessons with content that can be presented to students with meaningful applications.
Take the example of learning about body systems, which is a large component of many biology classes. The amount of time that needs to spent not only on presenting written information concerning the system being discussed but it is often necessary to involve some real hands on activities that bring the learning discussed to “real life”, which often involves a dissection. The amount of time to prepare and actually complete the dissection can be huge, not to mention the costs of purchasing the specimens. With the relatively new advent of so many online virtual learning applications available on the internet students now have options to visualize a virtual representation of real world activities in a quick and often cost free manner. Saving time allows students to dedicate more time to actually visualizing much of the content that is often only presented in pictures or words in textbooks. This can create a more meaningful and stimulating educational experience for students and also allows teachers more time to cover more material.
As an example the Exploratorium, which is an online museum dedicated to science education among other things provides many online options for students to enhance their classroom learning through online experiences. There is an online tutorial of a cow’s eye dissection that is free to view, quick to access and allows for multiple viewing options at any time student feel interested to explore. There are diagrams, pdf instructions for conducting a real dissection and multimedia opportunities to supplement what students may have learned in their class. This example of visualization software has the potential to enhance and create a more “real” experience for students to learn about topics that they otherwise may have only had the time to discuss and/or read about in class. By creating more experiences for students that seem real there is potential to increase student motivation and interest in topics that may otherwise seem boring or rudimentary.
Giving students the opportunity to explore online applications helps them to understand why they learn the topics that are presented in class and when students feel there is a reason to understand something they in turn may more active learners rather than passive listeners. Check out the cow’s eye dissection webpage at http://www.exploratorium.edu/learning_studio/cow_eye/index.html to see an example of the power of visualization software and how it can work for your students!
Cow's Eye Dissection from Exploratorium