Theoretical And Practical Research Based On The Teaching Of The History Of Chemistry

Teaching the history of chemistry helps a lot to address the lingering issues in logic-centric education system, i.e., the absence of attention to the formation of scientific knowledge or the acquisition of scientific methodology. While the industry is today preaching science education concepts including exploratory teaching and real life-oriented teaching, the teaching of chemistry is so far more around the teacher’s personal experience and non-systematic view of the history. That explains the similarity in teaching research conclusions, the lack of depth in the analysis of the history of chemistry and sometimes even misunderstandings. Therefore, the knowledge about the history of chemistry is as important as teaching skills.In the evolution of teaching the history of science, the purposes have expanded from merely inspiring the student to be a scientist to encouraging the student to understand scientific activities, learn the right methodology and the background knowledge and to understand the nature of science, which are exactly the targets of teaching the history of chemistry.The efforts in the industry in recent years around embedding history into teaching, and the researches on teaching results, new teaching model and content design have been very valuable to this study.The renewed attention to the history of science and its significance to teaching can date back to mid-20th century when philosophy of science had its impact on science education. The history of science offers real life case studies and answers questions like "what is science" and "what is truth" etc. Proper knowledge about the history of chemistry can assist the teacher to anticipate the challenges faced by the students and design teaching accordingly.Based on above theories, this study comments on the mainstream opinions on the philosophy of science and the psychology of learning. It also discusses the evolution of the chemistry dynamic theory as a case study on the philosophy of science, and compares the evolution of chemistry micro concepts and the development of students’cognition to build a practical bridge between the two.Chapter 5 illustrates the potential three benefits of the history of chemistry for students’science literacy, i.e., mastering scientific methodologies, understanding the nature of science and forming the proper view of science, which go beyond merely creating interest in the students. The analysis draws upon the facts in the history of chemistry to inspire teaching. After elaborating on the theory of teaching the history of chemistry and its significance, this essay addresses the implementation in real life teaching in Chapter 6. This chapter offers a framework for embedding the history of chemistry into the design of classroom teaching, and discusses the six major elements in chemistry teaching, i.e., history context, motivation, historical facts, interaction, knowledge and cognition, and science and humanity. After listing the cons and pros of history teaching, this chapter summarizes four teaching principles, i.e., combination of history and logic, that of objectivity and simplicity, knowledge and methodology, and history and reality. Lastly, this chapter provides three case studies to highlight the value of history in chemistry teaching in helping students develop cognition, the right view of chemistry and the philosophy of science.