The effects of using diorama on 7th grade students’ academic achievement and science learning skills

Rapid development in educational technology had led to the dissemination of knowledge in an unprecedented rate. This process has changed the traditional role of a teacher from being the source of knowledge to a guide providing opportunities for students to discover different ways of reaching knowledge. This is also compatible with constructive way of learning where students construct their own learning through the interaction with the learning environment and making discoveries rather than being directly taught by teachers ( Perkis, 1999). During this learning process students develop learning as well as problem solving and critical thinking skills (Orlich, Harder, Callahan, & Gibson, 2001). Science learning skills are skills that render science learning easy, help students become active, require students to take their own responsibility for learning, increase retention along with methods (Cepni, Ayas, Johnson & Turgut, 1996), transferable to other areas and reflected in the behaviour of scientists, use scientific methods to reach and produce knowledge (Arslan & Tertemiz, 2004). A teaching environment with effective teaching tools play an important role in achieving the successful outcomes since using these tools can stimulate students, help them to become active participants, provide opportunities for individually suitable examples and real life experiences as well as high academic achievement and an ability for critical thinking, problem solving and creative thinking (Celik, 2007). In addition, the use of teaching materials in the classroom enriches the educational experience and provides the meaningful learning for the subject (Kurtdede Fidan, 2008; Stokes, 2002). The use of material and tools for the difficult and abstract concepts in science are particularly important (Begoray, 2001). Because teaching tools provide the opportunity to bring the world of abstract science, which does not fit into the class, into a concrete class environment (Taber, 2002). It gives students the opportunity to learn through living and producing (Aksoy, 2003). Another reason for using teaching tools in science teaching is that they provide students with a real-life environment (Arslan, 2007). It is important that science lessons are practiced with the help of teaching materials in order to contribute to the training of students who are interested in science, who are curious, observers, thinkers, thinkers, asking questions, solving problems, making inferences and designing and finalizing experiments (Justi & Gilbert, 2002, Marbach-Ad, 2001). One of the teaching materials used in science teaching is dioramas (Tunnicliffe & Scheersoi, 2015). Diorama can be defined as a scene from a certain time period. Because of the nature of dioramas, this definition cover a vast area (Tunnicliffe & Scheersoi, 2009). The reason dioramas have such a large scope is that any moment can be captured at any given time. All the details of the moment captured with the help of dioramas are revealed using many objects (Assa &Wolf, 2007). In addition, in dioramas the relation of objects to each other and their surroundings are described. These described items are perfectly handled in dioramas as depiction of the reality (Tunnicliffe & Scheersoi, 2015). Dioramas can also be used to reach specific aims for teaching themes and topics. For example, in biological dioramas, the real habitat of an animal species can easily be demonstrated to students with real factors such as flora and soil structure. Also, dioramas can be used in teaching process to visualize the concepts such as prey-hunter, symbiotic life without the use of real animal examples. Furthermore, it helps identify biodiversity of the past, including extinct life forms (Marandino, Dias Oliveira & Mortensen, 2009). It also helps to demonstrate the changes that have taken place in the habitats of the living beings during a long period, from past to today, and facilitate learning in the process. Since 2004 there has been an attempt to shift the way science is taught in the classrooms in Turkey. The teacher centred learning in which teacher is the source of knowledge was changed to student centred learning that involves students being responsible for their learning and changes a teacher’s role to a guide for monitoring learning. Despite a relatively long duration the application of this paradigm shift does not seem to be occurring in the science classrooms (Çiftçi, Sünbül, & Köksal, 2013; Ocak & Çimenci Ateş, 2015). One of the reason for this is that developing a habit of teacher centred learning for almost their entire teaching career and being taught during their almost entire education by teacher centred learning, it is not easy for teachers to change their teaching practices. The other important reason is that teachers do not know how to practice student centred learning as they lack the necessary recourses. Dioramas present an example of practising student centred learning.

Aim of Study

In present study, the effect of using dioramas on learning “human and environmental relationships” in the middle school science has been investigated. In the study, answers for the following research questions were sought:

Are there differences between students’ achievement in “human and environmental relationships” through learning with the help of using dioramas and learning in a teacher centred learning environment?
Are there any gender differences in achievement when the two ways of learning are compared?
Are there differences between students’ competences in learning science on “human and environmental relationships” through learning with the help of using dioramas and learning in traditional way?
Are there any gender differences competences in learning science when the two ways of learning are compared?