Lots of meaty stuff in these readings in many different areas:
1) Is education a science? The Tyson article had a few examples supporting the affirative. For example on page 388 he describes the refinements and extensions of Posner’s original work as well as how it is used as a theoretical basis for other studies. Both of these are attribute of science. Duit, however, sums up the main sticking point for me on page 674 when he is discussing whether teaching with a conceptual change model is more successful than traditional teaching. He achknowledges that different studies using different techniques usually have different purposes/objectives so it is difficult to compare results. So I think I am still in the eduction is engineering camp . In teaching there is more than just science and the science used is less than the gold standard of objectivity.
2) The role of metacognition in fostering conceptual change should not be overlooked – a big change from Skinner’s boxes. This is a relatively new area for me, but it seems to go well with concepetual change. If we want students to modify their ideas, both the student and the teacher needs to know what those ideas are. Also, the idea that the students are using theories, albeit maybe wrong or naive ones, to guide their thinking is analogous to scientists using theories to guide their inquiries in Kuhn’s “normal ” science. This example of the nature of science can be used in the classroom to teach both the nature of science as well as a tool to foster change ( or dare I say learning?).
3) I am interested in working with teachers in professional development partly because of all the really bad professional development sessions that I have had to sit through. Posner’s 1982 article would be a good read for many physics teachers, although it may need some notes to go with it to eplain some of the jargon. Many times we look for new activities for our classrooms, but rarely do we look for new ways of thinking about learning. Reading about conceptual change theory could foster conversations into assessment (how do we know what our students have learned), teaching strategies (including metacognitive ones) and subject content (what should we actually teach)?. Also, Duit’s article addresses the issue of real teachers. I agree that most teachers are either unaware of or antagonistic towards educational research. Taking Science to School is a good translation of educational research into terms that teachers can actually use. The sections on the different content areas could be useful themselves or they could entice a practicing teacher to look more deeply into their specfic content.
4) Finally this theory has brought up many more questions for me nvolving how do we learn and do we learn different stuff in different ways. For example, my physics classes focus on changing the deeply rooted naive / aristotlean ideas that may students have about motion while my environment class is more about raising an awareness of the effects of an individual’s everyday actions/lifestyle- are area in which there are naive student ideas, but they seem to be born more of inexperience rather than deeply rooted ideas. The two seem very different. Physics seems to be a candidate for a concepetual change model, but I am not sure that the environment class is.
Tags: conceptual change, pals
Oh Yes,…the complexities of education and learning. I wonder, as I read about all the different researchers and their theories, what are we overlooking in the area of conceptual change? Is there some element we are missing which would tie all these ideas together and make it less complex? Is the human mind such that we can take these complexities and place them into neat frameworks?
I had to smile at your professional development comments. Only because I type my comments and then submit them to the blog before I actually read the blog. I don’t want to be biased in my comments. 🙂 So independently, we all three were thinking about the ramifications on teacher professional development. But then when I read Scott’s comments about this class being more about theory vs research, it did cause me to begin to take a different slant on things. So if this about providing explanations of large group phenomenon, then trying to place classroom applications is not appropriate in this context. Yet being the person who always wants application…how do I move from trying to figure out how this can help teachers to the bigger philosophical, esoteric place? Maybe I need to be making the conceptual change!
I echo your sentiments of point number 3. How many teachers have had to sit through terrible professional development and now equate all professional development as something that one has to “endure”? While teaching, I am not sure if I was aware of educational research that could prove useful to my classroom practice. I certainly hope I was not antagonistic to it.
In point 4, your mention “do we learn different stuff in different ways?” I would say yes (I am sure you would agree). This makes a teacher’s job even more complicated, as a really good educator would realize that each student learns differently and may need to be instructed differently. Wow. That seems like quite a task of a modestly-sized class of 20 students.
While reading the articles regarding conceptual change and looking at your point in part 3 of your blog, I am thinking “wouldn’t it be great if we knew what each and every concept our students have and then we would be able to change them.” Then I remembered reading that some researchers believe that two “theories” could exist side by side in a student’s mind, or perhaps, on the other hand, the fact that all knowledge is revisable. I guess simple replacement may/may not work.
Seems like the field of education keeps getting more complex!