Pedagogical practices for chemistry lecturers: The importance of the chemical triplet, verbal language and investigative experiments in chemistry teacher education.

Abstract

This theoretical paper proposes some pedagogical practices that may be applicable by chemical lecturers who teach in Chemistry teacher education courses. Those practices are based on three theoretical ideas: i) Johnstone’s triplet about the three levels of chemical knowledge (macroscopic, microscopic and symbolic) which imposes challenges due to the significance of chemical language, leading us to discuss ii) the importance of the verbal language in chemistry teaching-learning processes, and iii) in the role of investigative experiments for exploring students’ ideas and promote abstract thought. Those practices focuses on the relation of the chemical triplet with investigative experiments for promoting meanings’ negotiations between lecturer and his students by means of pedagogical mediations and discursive interactions. In this sense, some research contributions about chemical education are related with central ideas of the historical-cultural approach proposed by Vigotski and collaborators aiming to highlight the importance of chemical lecturers in chemistry teacher education courses.