DEVELOPING COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE IN DIGITAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS FOR PRIMARY SCIENCE STUDENTS

Effective natural science teaching in primary schools helps students to form and change their conceptions about nature and natural processes. This is only possible through communicating about learners' existing misconceptions and the process of transforming them into correct scientific concepts – using a socio-constructivist learning approach. The aim of this study was to find out what happens when the natural science teaching/learning process moves into digital learning environments. Immediately after the end of the Covid-induced school lock down, a sample of 183 first-, second- and third-grade teachers in Slovenia were asked to report about what happened in their science classes during the 11-week school lock down. The results reveal problems originating in very limited digital literacy competences as well as a lack of basic skills (in the first grade), and slowly emerging basic literacy in grades two and three. This had a great impact on the communication between teachers and students and between students themselves. According to research results, the problem significantly affects science teaching and is particularly urgent in didactics of chemistry and physics.