Uladzimir Slabin | University of Oregon (original) (raw)

Papers by Uladzimir Slabin

Journal of Baltic Science Education, 2022

A lot has been researched on and published about applying analogies in teaching science. The cont... more A lot has been researched on and published about applying analogies in teaching science. The content being complex, often abstract, and difficult for understanding, analogy comes as an effective tool to catch the essence. In brief, using an analogy for explanation of something unfamiliar new, we take something familiar old and establish connections between the two (Sarantopoulous & Tsaparlis, 2004).

Journal of Baltic Science Education, 2023

Conducting research in science education, the authors of the Journal of Baltic Science Education ... more Conducting research in science education, the authors of the Journal of Baltic Science Education surely remember eponyms in school subjects and university courses. Eponym is a term that includes the name of the person, who discovered a species (biology), explored a glacier (geography), synthesized a compound (chemistry), formulated a law (physics), invented a device (engineering), proved a theorem (mathematics), treated or suffered a disease (medicine), etc. Most chemists and chemistry teachers know, e.g., such eponyms as Avogadro number, Wurtz reaction, Mendeleev table, Liebig condenser, Claisen adapter, Berthollet salt, asf. Eponyms are a relatively new domain of scientific terminology: they first appeared in the 19th century, when the development of science and technology grew rapidly, and scientists decided to honor brilliant colleagues, attaching their names to the discoveries they made. Before this, scientists used words from national and Latin languages to name discovered phenomena. Until the 1970s, opposition to eponyms was rare. In the following decades, a discussion about possible replacement of eponyms with descriptive terms developed among scientists (mostly physicians). Publications “Should eponyms be abandoned? Yes”(Woywodt & Matteson, 2007) and“Should eponyms be abandoned? No”(Whitworth, 2007) say for themselves, setting the problem in a most direct way. In brief, physicians come out against eponyms for their being: (a) not reflective of the collaborative nature of science, (b) not descriptive and therefore misleading, (c) disrespectful of the diseased people, and (d) often named after people of bad reputation, namely, doctors who compromised themselves by connections with German Nazi party. Recent voices against eponyms strengthen the last argument by including more disreputable people. Considering biological eponyms, Guedes et al. (2023) argue...

Науковий часопис Національного педагогічного університету імені М. П. Драгоманова. Серія 5. Педагогічні науки: реалії та перспективи, 2023

Chemical eponyms in student studies: essential knowledge or sketchy recognition? The didactic pri... more Chemical eponyms in student studies: essential knowledge or sketchy recognition?
The didactic principle of educative teaching is important for quality education. A positive example is generally accepted as an educative method. With this method, one can use biographies of scholars, whose names are part of numerous scientific eponyms (terms that derived from names and denote concepts, phenomena, laws, theories, inventions, etc.). According to the principles of humanization and historicism, declared in national documents on education, eponyms can be used as a means of education when studying natural disciplines.
The research goal was to assess the knowledge of chemical eponyms and to identify the relationship between their reflexive understanding and solid knowledge in university students from different countries – Belarus and the USA.
For the Internet survey, an original 27-question questionnaire was developed. The collected data analysis, calculating descriptive (mean, standard deviations, and dispersion) and inferential (Mann-Whitney and Pearson tests) statistics was carried out using IBM® SPSS®.
It was found from the survey, that students from both countries better identify chemical eponyms by association than by their content (essence). Belarusian respondents demonstrated somewhat higher knowledge of eponyms than American respondents, which can be explained by the sample’s properties (Belarusians had a more representative share of students majoring in chemistry), schedule, and duration of chemistry classes. Recognition of chemical eponyms is facilitated by their repetition, uniqueness, and phoneticity. The leading factor of good knowledge is high motivation for mastering them, which in turn is determined by the chosen major – the most motivated in this respect were students of the profiling major “Chemistry” and “Teaching Chemistry”.
The research materials and the results obtained will be useful for chemistry instructors and chemistry teachers when developing lessons, lecture courses, series of workshops and laboratory classes, as well as in the preparation of teaching aids and authoring textbooks.
Key words: chemical education, eponym, history of chemistry, humanization of education, methods of chemistry, questionnaire.

Journal of Baltic Science Education, 2016

Strictly speaking, knowledge for every object in educational Universe is limited by ignorance or,... more Strictly speaking, knowledge for every object in educational Universe is limited by ignorance or, in other words, these two components co-exist. However, pedagogy primarily deals with knowledge, its acquisition and retention. It ignores the ignorance, leaving it as a subject for a more generic science of psychology. Similarly, atomic nuclei in real Universe are a subject for a more generic science of physics, being only slightly studied in chemistry. To research on knowledge is by far easier than on ignorance, same as chemical research involving mere electron shells is easier than physical research targeting atomic nuclei.

Journal of Baltic Science Education, 2007

The international scope of everything we do has exponentially increased over the last two decades... more The international scope of everything we do has exponentially increased over the last two decades.
From the products we consume to the jobs we hold, and the stores in which we shop – almost all aspects of our lives have an international connection. And this is the case within science education.
Situation with science education grows problematic worldwide, and it urges in both developing and leading industrialized countries. E.g., recent (2006) scores from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) illustrate it well: the test administered to students in 30 industrialized countries revealed that U.S. students continue to fall behind their peers in math and science. Students from Hong Kong followed Finland’s 15-year-old and Canada performed the best on the science portion of the test.
Students in Finland, Taiwan, South Korea, Canada, and Hong Kong were the best performers in Math.
What is the key reason for it? Sciences being hard to master or not “in fashion” today, widely spread humanities-over-sciences references, boring content of science textbooks or out-of-date underpinning pedagogical theory? Whatever it maybe, U.S. science teachers will have to learn much from colleagues in other countries about both their culture and their successful teaching practices. In turn, science educators from other countries can learn much from American science teachers. This will allow us all to better serve the diverse students we teach: students today are more likely to be from other countries and speak other languages.
Science teachers should increase their participation in diverse types of international activities because they are critical to the future of science education. A critical component of international efforts will be partnerships of teacher organizations. International collaboration today is marked with Internet
networking, online teaching, Web 2.0, and open source movement. Science education will benefit from powerful means of visualization (see Periodic Table of Visualization Methods on the Internet) and immersive multi-user 3D environments. Go to Second Life, and you will find ”Chemical Philosophers”, “Geographic Society in Cyberspace”, “Teen educators in SL”, “American Chemical Society”, “Science School”, “Chemistry and Computers”, “Science Park”, “Physics Education” and many others whose concern is science education. That is why University of Oregon Center for Advanced Technology in Education / Center for Global Teaching is interested in implementation of international projects focused on science education like Salamander and Chemistry Hall of Fame in Second Life.
Real and virtual worlds seem to be big and hardly ever compatible. But actually they are pretty close and do not have precise borders. In a magic way, UO CATE in EduIsland is a neighbor of ARiSEnet Teachers Group, which comprises mostly secondary school teachers interested or experienced in teaching students of diversity. Presented in JBSE issue No.1 (2007), ARiSE is a joint European project (another project from ARiSEnet), and their SL group collaborates as a team as well as with the other educator communities in defining pedagogy pertaining to 3D instruction particularly in the math and sciences (http://www.arise-project.org).
In this way, Journal of Baltic Science Education, whose topics in this issue include Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Cognitive Science, truly serves as a bridge between European and U.S. educators as well as between real and virtual worlds. Long live this reliable connection and fruitful cooperation for sustainable science education!

Journal of Special Education Technology, 2009

Expanded captions are designed to enhance the educational value by linking unfamiliar words to on... more Expanded captions are designed to enhance the educational value by linking unfamiliar words to one of three types of information: vocabulary definitions, labeled illustrations, or concept maps. This study investigated the effects of expanded captions versus standard captions on the comprehension of educational video materials on DVD by secondary students who are deaf or hard of hearing. Participants were assigned randomly to two groups, with each group experiencing both conditions in counterbalanced order. Scores from pretests and posttests of vocabulary and informational content revealed no statistically significant differences between the two conditions. The findings are discussed in light of student preferences for expanded captions and screen-capture data that revealed low access levels for the expanded material.

Исследования и разработки: Перспективные научные направления и результаты, 2017

On example of two educational projects, the experience of the University of Oregon use of virtual... more On example of two educational projects, the experience of the University of Oregon use of virtual environment for the training of natural science, arts, language and literature teachers has been presented. Acceptable forms of virtual presentations and the determining factors have been developed, the optimal format for documenting virtual classes has been established.

Journal of Baltic Science Education, 2017

Chemical eponyms possess important didactic and axiological potential that can be utilized for im... more Chemical eponyms possess important didactic and axiological potential
that can be utilized for implementation of the principles of humanization and historicism manifested in national educational standards. This study focused on students’ knowledge and views of eponyms in the light of history of science. 22 general chemistry students of Belarusian State University, 131 students of general and 119 students of organic chemistry of University of Oregon, all different majors, were surveyed on their knowledge and views of eponyms using a 24-item online questionnaire. Mann-Whitney coefficients were calculated to establish significant differences and Pearson chi-square test was applied to find correlations. It was found that students’ knowledge and views of eponyms are defined mostly by major: students majoring in teaching chemistry showed higher knowledge and expressed more positive views of eponyms than those majoring in non-teaching, non-chemistry and especially non-science. Other factors include students’ learning experience and study intensiveness. While didactic potential of eponyms is utilized anyway, utilization of their axiological potential depends on instructor’s willingness and mastery and should not be exaggerated as vehicles for the principles of humanization and historicism.

Journal of Baltic Science Education, 2013

Knowing students' opinions about instructor's screen sharing via various media is important for ... more Knowing students' opinions about instructor's screen sharing via various media is important for developing online science courses including chemistry. This study examined university students’ opinions about the idea and the practice of instructor’s screen sharing via websites on example of join.me, VoIP-applications on example of Skype, and multi-user 3D virtual environments on example of Second Life. It was conducted during summer course of General Chemistry at University of Oregon College of Arts and Sciences in Eugene, USA, for two consecutive years, 2001 and 2012. The data were collected through an online 14-item 4-point Likert-type questionnaire and students’ reviews. It was found that students have primarily positive opinions about screen sharing regardless of their gender, major, residence, and employment status. Join.me was found to be the most and Second Life to be the least favored media for screen sharing. Students with higher final grades provided more positive opinions.

Conference Presentations by Uladzimir Slabin

V. Lamanauskas (Ed.), Science and technology education: Engaging the new generation. Proceedings of the 2nd International Baltic Symposium on Science and Technology Education (BalticSTE2017), 2017

Being of didactic and axiological potential, eponyms are important for science education, in part... more Being of didactic and axiological potential, eponyms are important for science education, in particular for implementing the principles of humanization and historicism. Reviewing literature for dictionary of chemical eponyms, an unusual publication on teaching chemistry was found. It contained a number of self-introduced eponyms, no one of them is in use nowadays. Implications of the time the book was published at, ethnocentrism in education are discussed.

V. Lamanauskas (Ed.), Science and technology education: New developments and innovations. Proceedings of the 5th International Baltic Symposium on Science and Technology Education (BalticSTE2023) , 2023

Eponymous terms play an important role in STEM education. This research focuses on the current st... more Eponymous terms play an important role in STEM education. This research focuses on the current state of Mendeleev eponyms in the context of education and ethnocentrism, addressing their usage in various languages, their educational value, cases of questioned priority and copyright violation in Mendeleev major eponyms-periodic table and periodic system. 106 chemistry textbooks in 4 languages including Soviet-time and current Russian textbooks were perused to identify and trace Mendeleev eponyms over 1924-2016. Advanced Google Search with queries in Belarusian, English, Latvian, Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian was conducted to evaluate online presence of eponyms "Mendeleev periodic table" and "Mendeleev periodic system." It was found that while Mendeleev eponyms occur generously on the Internet, periodic table and system with Mendeleev's name attached are seldom used on non-Russian webpages. Most Mendeleev eponyms were made up in the USSR and remain popular and Russia, which can be explained within the framework of ethnocentrism as a ruling tendency. Recognizing Mendeleev's priority, Flinn and Ross's periodic systems can be considered plagiarized; a few factors might favor their emergence, but ethnocentrism is unlikely to be one of them. Mendeleev eponyms remain valuable assets for science education, acting as shortcuts to the history of science and actualizing interdisciplinary connections.