Reflections on the Teaching-Learning of the Natural Sciences: New perspectives and challenges

Abstract

The learning teaching process of the natural sciences, particularly chemistry, still faces issues that have been reported for decades. The principal issues are based on direct teaching and teacher-centered approaches that rely heavily on memorization. In addition, the lack of motivation and learning strategies on the part of the students reflects the issues most frequently reported. All of these factors originate from a lack of understanding of how knowledge is constructed from the structure and historicity of each individual; they also occur due to the lack of innovation from teachers who are in turn limited by external factors such as curriculum or lack of knowledge about new teaching techniques. This problem could be addressed by applying successful teaching methods which have been extensively studied but are still emerging in our country. Among them, the most successful is the learning of science through inquiry, which is focused on development of scientific abilities, understanding of content knowledge, contextualization of knowledge, and scientific literacy in the classroom and in the practice of professional science.