Use of didactic games to teach the concepts of heat and temperature to fifth graders

Today’s lessons are often fairly traditional and monotonous. They include a lot of frontal teaching and individual pupils’ work which they do not like. As class teachers we have to strive to compose a varied and interesting lessons, but we still need to ensure that pupils achieve the intended objectives and standards of knowledge. It makes sense to introduce various activities into the lessons, such as quizzes, puzzles, competitions, games, experiments. In this way pupils learn, while at the same time they establish good interpersonal relationships, a healthy measure of competition, self-confidence, and a different contact with the teacher. Since preparation of didactic games is time consuming and requires a lot of consideration and material, teachers do not use them enough and remain in traditional spheres. The master’s thesis presents how pupils learn about heat and temperature through the didactic games. In particular, we wanted to establish whether pupils achieve learning objectives and to what extent, how they cooperate, and how they react to individual didactic games. It is added how pupils with weaker learning abilities and pupils from socially disadvantaged families respond to certain tasks (leader of the group, teacher’s personal assistant). For the purpose of the research, four didactic games were designed to address the learning topic of heat and temperature in the 5th class of a primary school. The sample consists of 14 pupils from the 5th class of the village primary school. Prior the beginning of the research, pupils took a shorter test that revealed their knowledge prior addressing the learning content. After the didactic games were completed, pupils took another test in order to assess progress in their knowledge. In the research itself, the techniques of quantitative and qualitative (structured interview, observation, analysis of knowledge tests, assessment scale) research approach were used. The obtained data were regularly recorded and analysed. The analysis revealed knowledge progress in all pupils. At the same time, it is evident that pupils enjoyed in didactic games and evaluated them well. They also well assessed their own progress in knowledge. They also gave a high evaluation of the lessons that include didactic games. For weaker pupils it was established that they need more teacher’s encouragement and that they accept the leader role mostly well. The results of the master’s thesis offer insight for the class teachers in the pupils’ reactions of how they learn about heat and temperature through the didactic games. At the same time, it is an encouragement for teachers to use didactic games more often and to see them as a good teaching method that can be used for several years, and not only as an additional and unnecessary work