THE IMPACT OF TEACHING SCENARIOS ON STUDENT PERCEPTION OF TEACHING

Within contemporary education teachers look for tools which will help them create stimulating classes for their students. They often look for ideas and approaches which will enable student activity. Within the Project 'e-Schools: Establishing a System for Developing Digitally Mature Schools (Pilot Project)' we designed and tested an initial 20 teaching scenarios which were created for Biology, Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics for the 7th and 8th grades of primary education and the 1st and 2nd grades of secondary education. A total of 1,508 students from 13 different schools participated in the research. Data was analysed by means of data mining techniques. A data mining approach has proven to be useful tool for knowledge extraction from large data sets. This research applied two data mining techniques: cluster analysis and decision trees. The results of clustering and the generation of rules from a decision tree model were based on student questionnaires. Various interesting rules were extracted and discussed. With regards to gender, grade point average (GPA), the class and school students were attending and differences in perception of teaching scenarios were all examined. Our analysis of clusters indicates a strong relationship between a student's grade and perception of teaching. Students with higher GPAs gave higher scores for the teaching materials and the teaching process. Students that found the teaching process based on created teaching scenarios to be comprehensible, logical and motivating, and that it also encouraged them to actively participate in the class. Furthermore, results showed that students perceived the fact that such teaching encouraged independent learning, reflection and thought about the subject. We found that one of the strongest arguments for the use of these teaching scenarios in a teaching process was the result of conducted research that revealed that over 60% of students found that such a teaching process helped them see possible applications of learned lessons in real life situations.