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05
Sep 10

Conceptual Change

 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.

Uncategorized — 2 Comments
05
Sep 10

A Concept of Conceptual Change

My initial ideas on conceptual change revolved around student conceptual change of science content.  Reading the articles by Duit, Tyson, and, Posner got me to think about the ontological and social/affective nature of conceptual change as well.  Both Duit and Tyson elaborate on the progression of conceptual change being content oriented to multidimensional.  Though both present a lack of evidence for how social/affective domains affect conceptual change, it was helpful to read about how they consider these areas to also play an important role in student conceptual change.  I have been wondering lately how do students’ attitudes, beliefs, culture, school culture, etc. effect how individuals are subject to conceptual change and hope to do some additional readings in  this area. 

Also, my on previous conceptions of conceptual change (haha) were that students’ initial conceptions were simply replaced or expanded upon in light of the inapplicability of original beliefs.   All four of the readings highlight upon the evidence that original conceptions are never really lost, but often reoccur in changing contexts or over time.  

Tyson writes “Creating links is an important feature of conceptual change theory, otherwise there is no difference between conceptual change and simple rote learning.”  This statement allows for multiple types of learning including some aspects of Behaviorism, though not all types of learning are useful in every situation. In Duit’s article a paragraph is devoted to additional authors’ findings that the “impetus for change being within the learner’s control” and “The notion of intentional conceptual change is in some ways analogous to that of mindfulness, a ‘construct which reflects a voluntary state of mind, and connects among motivations, cognition, and learning.'”  From my own experience, I cannot comment on how much of my own conceptual change was a “voluntary state of mind,” but I do agree that the process of conceptual change cannot be brought about solely by the teacher.  The learner is ultimately the at the crux of conceptual change.  

Lastly, conceptual change seems to be at the forefront of theoretical frameworks in science education.  I know this is a theory course but I was a bit disappointed to see that only the Posner article made recommendations on how to incorporate conceptual change into the classroom (though both Duit and Tyson admitted the importance of incorporating the theory into practice).  As I read these articles, I am constantly thinking about my teaching of SCIED 497F (basically science and engineering concepts for elementary education majors) and I am wondering how much of the course elements we specifically design for conceptual change (such as beginning ideas, reflection, claims and evidence, opportunities for argumentation, etc.) are actually leading to their own conceptual changes or ultimately to their use of a conceptual change framework in their own teaching.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

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