Developing students critical thinking during biology lessons in junior high school with the use of IT

• Authors: Izabela Szot
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Critical thinking is one of the most important modern human skills. In an age when an overwhelming amount of information is available on the Internet, one of the most important aims of school is to develop student ability to select and evaluate information found on the Internet. The aim of this research was to examine how critical thinking at junior high school level can be developed using the Internet as a source of information. A group of second year students of junior high school (age 14–15) were asked to complete some WebQuests. Their WebQuest task was, to prepare information required for the next biology lesson using given Internet sources. WebQuest topics concerned human anatomy and physiology (e.g.: digestive, circulatory and the respiratory system). Apart from the Internet sources, students were later given a presen-tation by the teacher during the lesson. The experimental group included 46 students (75% of the second year) who attempted a minimum three of five assigned papers. Completed papers were analysed. Content selection and form of presentation during class were assessed. Results show that: - 32% of students prepared all or almost all work with a high level of accuracy, - 35% of students improved their work during the experi-ment, - 20% of students did not correctly complete any of the assignments. Well-prepared papers were those which were not copied from website articles. They showed deep level of subject understanding and proper source selection. Also, the form of paper allowed quick and easy access to the information. This research will be continued.

Keywords

EN

students critical thinking; WebQuest; IT

• Publisher: Instytut Badań Edukacyjnych
• Journal: Edukacja Biologiczna i Środowiskowa
• Year: 2014
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 42-46

Dates

published

2014-03-28

Contributors

author

Izabela Szot