Development and Implementations of the Instructional Strategies that Help Student Understanding of Scientific Concepts in Electricity and Magnetism : Through the Use of Students’ Five Senses

It is often the case that middle-school students have difficulties in understanding concepts in electricity and magnetism in science lessons. Especially in Okinawa where students are facing serious problems of having low scores in the national assessment tests, the percentage of students who have difficulties in the electricity and magnetism unit of the science curriculum is high and instructional strategies to overcome the difficulties are very much needed. In this study, instructional strategies that help student understand scientific concepts in electricity and magnetism (E&M) were developed and implemented in middle-school science. The background of the teaching of the E&M area was explored first using the government-issued documents and textbooks. Analyses of middle-school science lessons followed to reveal the types of questions that are effective for student understanding of scientific concepts. Based on these findings and the constructivism framework, an 8th grade mock lesson in electricity was developed and implemented (N=9). The results indicate the effectiveness of a ) the multi-perspective for developing a science lesson, b) questions at the comprehensive level of Bloom’s taxonomy, and 3) the material developed for this lesson to help students feel the electricity by using their fingers immersed in water. Further implications of the effectiveness of the use of senses in science teaching are discussed