Electrical energy is one of the most important energy products. However, its popularity has been growing due to the rise of electric vehicles. To date, the majority of electrical energy resources have been non-renewable. One of the renewables is wind. The curriculum for design and technology does not pay any attention to wind as an energy product.
To introduce the topic of wind energy exploitation into technology-related topics, a general learning strategy should be selected. Inductive learning strategies should be given priority because pupils engage in activities. Popular and traditional teaching methods, however, are based on deductive approaches. The only explicitly mentioned inductive approach in the curriculum for design and technology is project learning. Other strategies are mentioned indirectly, i.e. through descriptions of pupils' activities.
In 2013, the Faculty of Education of the University of Ljubljana joined the 3-year Chain Reaction project, which is funded by the European Commission as part of the Seventh Framework Programme.The master's thesis explores the topic of wind turbines in line with the concepts of inquiry-based learning.
In the introductory part we described the differences between traditional learning and inductive learning and defined the types of inductive learning, with special attention devoted to inquiry-based learning.
Based on the concepts of inquiry-based learning, we developed a lesson plan for technical days, taking into account the strategies of inquiry-based learning. We devised a simple model of a wind turbine and described the implementation of technical days. Moreover, we discussed the results of the technical days and compared them to those from the Solkan Primary School, where established concepts of traditional teaching were employed. The comparison indicated that traditional approaches to learning yielded slightly better results. The Revised Bloom's Taxonomy suggests that traditional teaching methods are more effective at the level of memorising data and analysis. The data from the questionnaire on the satisfaction of the experimental group showed that the pupils participating in the Chain Reaction process are different. The pupils from the Šentjernej Primary School were more satisfied with the implementation, teaching aids, contents, the process and the topic of the technical days compared to the pupils from the Maksa Pečarja Primary School and the Srečka Kosovela Primary School.
The sample in both the experimental and the control group was small. In the future, its size should be larger, particularly in the control group to be able to generalise the results to the entire population.
|
