Discovery Processes

In the third lesson, we leraned and talked about what we should do while making an exploration. We laetned that "National Association for the Education of Young Children" has processes while exploring. These are:

1) The exploration starts with raising a question.
2) The exploration of materials and objects begins.
3) Next, careful observations take place.
4) One describes, compares, sorts and classifies the things and situations.
5) After, to extend the observation one uses variety of tools.
6) And now there becomes an engagement with investigation.
7) Then, observation is recorded.
8) Finally, communication with others.

I think, science is all about classification, organization, and thinking that involves critical and logical skills. Not only is teaching the Scientific Method a required process in education, but also it is also a very useful process that when developed, can enhance a child's thinking and reasoning skills. By empowering children to use the scientific method, they can begin to explore their world and their surroundings while asking appropriate questions that will develop their critical thinking.

The Scientific Method may be described in the following steps: Observation, Question, Hypothesis, Prediction, Experiment, Analysis, and Decision or Conclusion.

As a teacher, you can encourage your children to "observe" and then lead them into the next step, "Question".
After Observation, Question comes into play. When teaching the Scientific Method, encourage children to ask as many questions as possible after they have made careful observations. Don't ever discourage children from asking questions, this is a wonderful way for children to learn.
After children have formulated questions from careful observations, then they will form a Hypothesis. A Hypothesis is an educated guess that will answer questions.
Predication is simply encouraging children to think about what the outcome will be when they conduct their final experiments.
Along with experiment is a careful analysis of the results of the experiment. This analysis will result in a decision or final conclusion.
Lastly, we talked about and I understood that helping children learn and understand the Scientific Method offers many benefits that will extend far beyond science books.

Open-ended questions are wonderful tools that promote children's creative thought, problem-solving skills, and cognitive growth. Some open-ended questions follows;

· What do you think about ...?
· How could we fix it?
· I wonder if there's another way?
· What's your opinion?
· Just suppose that...then what?
· What would happen if ...?
· What else can we use this for?
· What is this like?
· Is there another way to do this?
· What if we added this?
· Tell me about it.

In laboratory session,

The first group focused on the air and the existence of air. Their experiments were too clear and understandable. Second group also focused on the presence of the air, the concept of the center of the gravity. They make “hacıyatmaz”. I think, this is the good way to explain the concept of “gravity” to children. Their experiments reached good results and they were enjoyable.
I learned these words:
Elicit: extract from, bring out
Prob: examine, invest, explore