Abstract
In the monograph are discussed possibilities and limits of the early chemistry curriculum innovation in the Czech Republic at time of current curricular reform. Example of chemistry subject matter in educational content and context is focused.
The research was realised in framework of the project EU Operational Programme "Didactics: Man and Nature A", No. MS2014 CZ.02.3.68/0.0/0.0/16_011/0000665.
For the starting points were used team member's experience with chemistry education and teacher's preparation as well as analysis of results from international research TIMSS (2007) and current report of Czech School Inspection focused on science literacy development at secondary schools in school year 2016/17. Methodology of research was based on interview with chemistry teachers and the research was focused on their opinions about the key, critical and partly also dynamic points of the lower secondary chemistry curriculum in the Czech Republic (with focus to first year of chemistry instruction during lower secondary education).
Through the interviews with 40 chemistry teachers from four Czech regions was gained information about what teachers named as critical topics and what as key topics in early chemistry school contents. Based on the interview's analysis of the most frequent critical as well as key points of the early chemistry curriculum, 8 modules were created to improve their teaching and action research was used to evaluate them.
Modules: Acids Nomenclature, Salts Nomenclature, Oxidation Number, Solution Composition Calculations, Atom Building, Chemical Reactions, Chemical Equations and Writing and Enumeration Calculation from Chemical Equations serve as a basis for revision and eventual modification of teacher teaching preparation and subsequent verification in the teaching of the subject (according to the form of the particular curriculum of the schools). In collaboration of teachers with subject didacticians, the modules were continuously modified according to the gained experience to include the optimal presentation, practice and evaluation of the subject matter of the topic.
The criticalness of the eight selected topics is directly related to the learners' intellectual maturity since these are mostly very abstract themes. Therefore, a combination of them with examples of objects and activities that learners encounter or can meet both in school and especially in everyday life is appropriate.
It is necessary to realize that it is not appropriate to perceive any topic as an isolated thematic whole, but that it permeates another curriculum of chemistry. That is why it is necessary to give the learners sufficient time to fix and acquire concrete experience for the real learning of the curriculum.
It has also been shown that learners need a higher degree of activation through laboratory activities, educational games and practice. The presented results have the ambition to substantially contribute to the innovation in teaching the early chemistry contents and contexts at the lower secondary school in the Czech Republic, because the main emphasis has been paid on the cooperation of researchers with teachers from the practice and building so-called "community of the practice".