In Pintrich et al’s (1993) discussion of motivation in conceptual change, the authors discuss both the individual links between motivation and conceptual change as well as the role the classroom environment plays in conceptual change. Towards the beginning of the article the authors explain that some classroom tasks are not clearly defined, causing students to define the tasks for themselves. In this case, students may not understand which cognitive resources to use in going about the task. I feel like I have definitely felt like this more than once in my schooling– wondering ‘what am I supposed to be getting from this?’ during a lesson. In other cases, tasks like drill worksheets are too over-structured and require little to no cognitive engagement. This reminded me of the model we constructed for conceptual change. In the case where tasks are not clearly defined and students must provide their own goals and structure, it seems as though students may not be actively progressing toward the assimilations/accommodations the teacher wanted out of the task– i. e. students may not be rearranging their concepts/making links between their “mind islands”. In the case that is over structured, the task may not require any assimilation or accomodation to their already existing web. Pintrich et al make the point that “a focus on mastery or learning goals can result in deeper cognitive processing on academic tasks than a focus on the self (ego-involved) or a focus on performance (grades, besting others), which seems to result in more surface processing and less overall cognitive engagement ” (p. 173). This seems fairly straightforward to think about, in a class where we “just want to get an A”, it makes sense to cram right before an exam and immediately forget everything afterword. In a class where the beans (and mill) feel useful to the learner in some sense and learning and mastery goals motivate the learning, the cognitive engagement is much deeper. Not only does Pintrich et al discuss the conceptual change model of learning, they touch on the idea that learning is situated in the classroom context. The article states: “it appears that tasks that are more challenging, meaningful, and authentic in terms of actual activities that might be relevant to life outside of school can facilitate the adoption of a mastery goal” (p. 177). The authors go on to discuss that schools are often inauthentic in their activities. We have seen this throughout the semester– schools are “unnatural” and exist as a culture of their own.
Brown et al (1993) agree with the idea that schools are communities/cultures in and of themselves, however, they don’t see this in a negative light. Brown et al state: “Even without an appreciation for daily life in grade school, the armchair philosopher must see the impracticality of suggesting that children be enculturated into the society of historians, biologists, mathematicians, and literary critics” (p. 190). So, if Brown et al suggest that we should not attempt to enculturation students into these authentic communities, what then is the point of school? Their answer is that “schools should be communities where students learn to learn” (p. 190). Schools should produce “intelligent novices” who, though they may not have the knowledge needed to do a task, they have learned how to go about getting it. Essentially, schools should help individuals learn to learn so that they can go about using this skill (learning) in the “real world” throughout their lives. This seems like a reasonable argument, however my question is, how similar is learning in school to learning out in the “real world”?
Driver et. al 1994 suggest that learning science goes beyond extending children’s knowledge of the natural world and rather challenges young people’s views on how the world works through discrepant events. This is in agreement with the model for conceptual change, in which an assimilation or accomodation only happens if there is “dissatisfaction with existing conceptions” (Poser, 1982, p.214). Driver et al explain that a critical piece of the learning process and being socialized comes from the discourse and dialogue process between teacher and student. This reminded me of our discussion of Vygotsky, in which we determined that internalization comes from language and talk between individuals over time. Lastly, Driver at al touch on the idea that there are different kinds of learning and say: “we suggest that these differences in student response can, in part, be accounted for by considering the ontological and epistemological demands for learning in the separate science domains in question” (p. 11). How does this idea of different kinds of learning depending on the scientific domain in question relate to our previous models? Does each scientific domain need individual models of how learning works?
I think the problem with tests that a student crams for is not the motivation behind the studying but the grading scheme. If a student can cram for their test and get an A then I would question whether the test really tested the student’s understanding.
Sarah, I liked how you related this week’s readings to the various models and authors we have read to far: conceptual change, Vygotsky, etc. As I was reading the articles, I also did this and noticed many of the points you made but also that the readings this week, for the most part and especially the one by Driver et. al (1994), stress that learning is both an individual process and social process. So far this semester, I felt that the first few readings looked at science learning as an individual behavior while the readings from the last few weeks have focused more on learning between individuals. I did enjoy seeing how you compared them, and just thought I would share how I compared them (and to point out that it was nice to be able to have some prior knowledge, pun intended, on the theories that the authors this week used to make their arguments!)
As for your thoughts on Pintrich et al’s (1993) article, I think that it is interesting to view student learning as two types: mastery orientation and performance orientation. While students can engage in both, most engage in performance orientation (getting that “A”) while fewer engage in actually learning the material, leading me to wonder: why? I feel that motivation, as the authors suggest, plays a role in which ones, if either or both, students engage in. Students who say “I am not a science student” or do not want to pursue a science-related degree may not engage in either while those that just care about their GPA may engage solely in performance orientation. I guess this leads me to think: how can we, as teachers, motivate students to want to engage in both orientations? Should all students engage in both? And how can we continuously motivate students who engage in one or both to continue to do so?
Sarah, I enjoyed reading your ideas, particularly on the example of how pre-test, cram sessions prove only useful in the short term and lead to students forgetting material in the long term makes me now wonder about how assessment reflects a classroom that fails to stimulate student learning. If our assessments are purely memorized content (beans) then students truly have no choice but to bulk memorize and regurgitate. I wonder if we revolutionized the assessment to test how students encounter and apply skills, whether this is a far better assessment on if the student can apply their knowledge, we would also not have to memorize formulas and equations, but rather teach skills that can be used with any science concept.