It was very interesting to get a chronological picture of the conceptual change evolution, which is still continuing. Posner et al. became the pivotal research idea behind conceptual change, looking at Piaget, Driver & Easly’s, and Erickson’s works and suggesting the next step in student learning. Their basic question was “how student’s conceptions change under the impact of new ideas and new evidence” (pg 212). According to Tyson et al., Posner et al.’s conceptual change model has dominated the field of science education because their work explicitly takes into consideration students’ epistemological commitments to their conceptions, providing many more tools for researchers in their work. However, since then, other researchers have added their findings and ideas about conceptual change to the landscape.
I found Tyson et al.’s paper interesting as it did an excellent job summarizing the research and describing the similarities and differences of other. Yet under closer review, it became apparent that there were more similarities than differences. As several author’s pointed out, many ideas are the same, but with different terminology. Tyson’s attempt to try and package the ideas into one framework reminded me of other researchers doing the same thing. Pellegrino et al.’s Assessment Triangle, combining the importance of cognition, observations, and interpretations in student assessment. There is the Hewitt’s Learning Triangle, and the triangular idea of considering curriculum, teaching, and assessment in student achievement. Teaching and learning is difficult, and I think these types of frameworks can only assist in the understanding of these complexities while helping to implement change in the classroom.
Duit et al.’s paper, coming six years later, discusses the limitations of the conceptual change approaches of the 80’s and 90’s. For example, he states more elaboration in the affective domain area Tyson et al. discussed is necessary (p. 679). In addition to more work necessary in this area, he also is emphasising multi-perspective frameworks. I personally think more work needs to occur in translating this research into classroom implementation. What does this all mean and how can teachers use this knowledge when teaching students?
When I read these papers and TSTS, my personal lens is teacher training and how can we help teachers become more effective at their trade. As stated in TSTS, Teachers and curriculum developers are often not aware of these different levels of difficulty and hence don’t appropriately modify their methods of teaching when confronting different types of cases (p. 107). So how do we do this? Is this the principals responsibility, as the instructional leader? Is it the teacher’s responsibility to find time to read current research and implementation strategies? Can teachers even find professional development which includes this type of research and implementation? According to the research, understanding conceptual change is vital in understanding student misconceptions and helping them move from one level of understanding to another. I think the challenge is providing teachers with the classroom applications to incorporate this conceptual change knowledge into their teaching.
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In looking at your closing comments, it appears that there must be a whole restructuring of education if we are going to succeed in creating instruction that will be effective. I like your comment regarding professional development. Allow me to comment on it. In remembering professional development activities when I was a classroom teacher, there was always a feeling of “this is a waste of time” or “here we go again” or even “how does this apply to me”. If we disregard all of the above reactions to professional development and assume that teachers will value the new ideas, how will teachers be able to find the time, energy and resources to implement the new ideas and strategies in their respective courses? It would seem that this type of restructuring would require more than a one-day seminar; I am thinking this would require significantly more time.
We are going to work on a chronology for all this as part of class. I think it does help to have a historical perspective on these ideas and how they influence each other.
Also, remember that what you are reading for this class is largely theory not research. The point of this, just as with (for example) string theory, is not to be practical in its applications, but to provide explanations of large groups of phenomenon. If you look at good empirical research in education, there is almost always at least an attempt to make applications of the findings to practice.
Apparently ed. researchers like triangles!! But sometimes they mask the complexities involved in the actual practice of teaching.
I am also interested in teacher training. I have been to very few outside the physics realm that even mention misconceptions or preconceptions or changing conceptions! THere is a lot of work on physics misconceptions, but I only know about this because I serendipitously ( is that a word?) got involved in the Amer. Assoc. of Physics Teachers and met some great & knowledgeable people in the group. Without that background, all of this wouldhave probably been really really new to me.