Most scientific works define “method” as a “path towards” reaching the goals envisaged by teaching activities, for a more efficient educational process. The work focuses on the advantages and disadvantages of using the method “Gallery Tour”, a method included in the category of “collaboration-based learning techniques”, and the method “I know/I want to know/I have learned”, a method falling under “techniques for developing critical thinking” in teaching the informative content “Biopedoclimatic areas” included in the syllabus for the 9th grade, in the learning unit “Life and Soils on Earth”. Collaboration-based learning techniques determine competition-based learning experiences. The mechanical reproduction of information is avoided, but there is the disadvantage that some students may have a passive attitude and an unequal participation in solving work tasks. Such methods prevent monotony and boredom. Techniques for developing critical thinking imply understanding the information and the reasoning. Students analyse ideas logically, argue, ask, accept or reject information. They observe, judge, state judgments of value. Such techniques stimulate the students’ curiosity.
Within both methods, knowledge is acquired through personal effort, passed through their own experience, through the filter of their thinking. They understand and reproduce them according to their age specificities. “The Gallery Tour” and “I know/I want to know/I have learned that” stimulate the students’ curiosity and interest for finding out new information, as efficient, active learning methods.
Elisabeta CIOCAN
Abstract