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Martina Kettler spoke about a problem in science education.
Scientific courses are most hated subjects at school, because of the
language of symbols (it`s a problem of understanding especially
One result of the phenomen (symbol shock) is the mental blocking, it appears
when symbols come up. Tasks can’t be solved by the students because the
symbols make them unsure.
What can be done?
The teachers must be better instructed and the pupils must be taught better, causes
and consequences for symbols must be clearer. To keep interest up, the teacher should connect symbols to their history.
The knowledge must be given for what a symbol stands: “Secret language, secret signs”
Pupils should regonize that they already know the term and that
now only symbols are used. And at the end of the lecture Miss Kettler showed
some examples how to get handy with it (group-work, using wing-dings to write a
letter, explaining the ISBN-code -> every “symbolic” number has a meaning).
Hopefully this can help pupils to overcome their strange feeling using symbols.