TEACHERS’ OPINIONS ON USING PHOTOGRAPHS TO STUDY NATURAL SCIENCES

This research aimed at investigating, within a focus group, the primary grades teachers' opinions concerning the use of photographs in Natural Sciences lessons. We asked teachers to answer nine questions on: the contents of the used photographs, their sources, the circumstances/reasons they took into account when selecting the photographs, the lesson stages when they used them, the used methods, the context in which they had got information about the manner in which photographs should have been used, the pupils' interest in using photographs during learning activities in Natural Sciences, which are the disadvantages/risks for pupils if photographs were not used, and on the challenges the teachers had to cope with when using photographs during Natural Sciences lessons. At the end of our study, we noticed the diversity of the topics and lesson stages when photographs had been used, teachers' preference for the Internet as a source of photographs although Internet connection in school was poor, and that teachers appreciated photographs as significant for pupils' motivation, to focus their attention, enabling perception and understanding of natural and human induced processes, to form their representations and enable knowledge retention in pupils' memory, to develop thinking, language, imagination, and creativity. They pointed out that in the absence of photographs for learning Natural Sciences, pupils would run the risk of not understanding or less understand the topics, and of making misleading representations.