Self learning study pack on 'insect pests' for A/L biology students
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Date
1999
Authors
Damayanthi, K. H. N.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The University of Peradeniya
Abstract
The ultimate goal of teaching science is to develop the students’ curiosity, openness, skepticism, communication in order to be able to apply them to his day to day life. The student who has these abilities is able to get rid of misconceptions or naive conceptions easily and be able to construct scientific theories that are found in the real world. Further more activity based teaching and learning provide enough opportunities to the students to acquire real life experiences.
My experience in teaching Zoology over a span of a decade followed by exposure through the M. Sc. In science education together, I received with the demands made by newly introduced Educational Reforms led me to prepare this self learning study pack.
The study pack consists of a 2 cassettes (120 min) a work book (25 pp.) a set of ten plates and a picture story, that makes the study on insect pests interesting to a motivated student. The student begins by listening to the cassette and following instructions given in it to carry out field and other activities indicated in the work book. Guidance for recording the activities are indicated in the work book in the form of tables and graphs. The study pack covers 34 activities in this manner. Certain tasks are aimed at taking the student to the field and getting first hand experience. One such activity is the visit to a paddy field and yving a dialogue with the farmer to observe and obtain information on paddy pests, tural and chemical methods used.
Most activities take the form of question and answer style by which the students can make an immediate self assessments and corrections.
The plates provided form the backbone to this study where colour pictures of the cycle stages of the insect pest and damage to the crop is shown enabling their easily entification when seen in the field situation.
The study pack is intended to be a novel and an interesting experience through which student’s can grasp the message easily. As science teachers we can contribute to the development of this type of study pack for a very large group of users on varied topics and lessons. Last but not least I hope that this type of study pack would keep the students away from unlimited tuition classes and keep them in their homes and schools studying on their own. I hope this would form a bridge between the teacher and the student completing a lesson done in class as home work.
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Keywords
Science education , Self learning , Biology , Students , A/L