So I’m a little confused by the Steedle et al article. I guess I’m just confused about how they went about getting their data and where this facet class came from. It also would have been helpful if they would have included the test questions that they used. Oh well. What I got from their article was that their proposed “novice to expert learning progression” did not predict all of the students’ conceptions about force and motion. Their conclusion that a “novice to expert learning progression” cannot describe every students’ understanding of constant speed probably can be carried over to other subjects. Even though this type of learning progression might not capture every student’s level of understanding, I think they are still helpful to the teacher to have an idea of what kind of conceptions their students may have.
I found Wilson’s paper to be quite helpful. It showed the different types of construct maps that you can create for a learning progression that I didn’t know existed. I always thought construct maps were likes those presented by project 2061 that have arrows pointing to each related concept.
Our previous readings would suggest that learning progressions fall into the conceptual change and constructing knowledge category. You are identififying students’ misconceptions and trying to change them at the same time building on previous knowledge.
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On this point:
I like this way of thinking about the learning progressions. I had been thinking of them just from the perspective of the different theories of learning we’ve been talking about, but when I think of them as a way for a teacher to think of more possible ways a student might be thinking about the topic, I see more value in them. Related to your last point, I think LP’s really add to the misconception idea (for me, at least) by considering it a process toward mastery of the concept, not just a pass or fail idea.