SCIED 552: Science Teaching and Learning Developing Models of Science Teaching

At first glance, the idea of learning progessions seems to make a lot of sense to me.  By taking into consideration the more unifying concepts of science, and developing cognitive progressions for students across defined time-frames (3 year chunks), we can begin to try to attack the depth of understanding students have rather than a “mile wide and inch deep” focus of today’s school.  I think this type of instruction could allow for more experiential learning opportunities (perhaps this is where more situated learning could be incorporated into the classroom), or at least more room to connect the core concepts across multiple domains.  These progressions are a work in progress for sure, and don’t come without some room for improvement (noted by Duncan).  But given the abundance of complaints about our current model of instruction and assessment, are LPs any worse?  While certainly not a simple fix, I think they at least begin to present a step in a new direction for instruction.

I thought the idea of giving a multiple choice exam to assess where a student would fall on the progression could be an effective grouping tool, but not an end all be all for assessing someone’s knowledge.  From the classes I have taken, I feel I have been programmed to think of multiple assessment types as the way to go; multiple choice being perhaps the weakest method.  But ordering the multiple choice responses as a means to diagnose the students position across a learning progression seems like a pretty effective and relatively easy diagnostic tool (Steedle and Shavelson paper).  While these are not fool proof (students falling into different progressions with their responses, perhaps an indication of knowledge in fragments like diSessa wrote about), they can provide a good first approximation of content knowledge students possess.  

In the Wilson article, the aim of using construct maps to begin to build appropriate learning progressions was the first building block to effective LPs.  These construct map levels seemed very similar to state anchors of standards, as noted by Wilson.  In this case, if the proper construct map is not used, it seems the rest of the LP process is shot.  Having a clear understanding of the key concepts and levels in which they typically unfold seems to be the driving force.  How we get to these key concepts is the tough part that needs to be agreed upon.  The idea of developing assessments from construct maps, and then using assessment results to develop appropriate learning progressions is rational, but could result in a few iterations before we begin to narrow down the correct levels of sophistication.  I will consent this testing process if we can get rid of the PSSAs!

Finally, I read the Songer article on LPs and their development goals.  Trying to develop an assessment that measures both content knowledge and inquiry reasoning echoed the purpose that Duschl described in developing LPs.  Not surprisingly, using more embedded assessment activities along with progression of a unit allowed for greater expansion of student reasoning and more complexity in answers compared to multiple choice, traditional assessment types.  This information supports the belief that most probably have regarding multiple choice summative exams; however, this will require a lot more effort and thought from the teachers as well as the students, and instruction methods need to mirror this type of assessment, otherwise I don’t see the value in giving these types of exams and expecting “better” results and thinking from your students.

Before this week, I had never read anything about learning progressions, so the only insight that I have into what they entail comes from this week’s readings. With that being said, there is one thing that each author seemed to mention at the start of their work: learning progressions are relatively new in the education field, but they have been utilized in other areas for years. What has led to this increase in research in recent years? And why has it taken so long for the field of education research to consider the possible significance of utilizing learning progressions in a classroom setting?

Through their research, Steedle and Shavelson illustrated the difficulty in developing standardized learning progressions. In the research they performed, they aimed to classify students into different levels of understandings – with level 4 being the most knowledgeable students in the group. If the learning progression is reflective of the standardized assessments provided, I would assume that students in level 4 would have enough knowledge base to understand the content being assessed. However, this was not the case. I thought it to be very interesting that these students with the highest level of understanding still possessed misconceptions. This study by Steedle and Shavelson illustrates that a multitude of variables goes into the successful application of a learning progression in the classroom. If one thing is clear to me after reading this article, it is that much more research needs to be done before learning progressions can be utilized to their fullest potential in a classroom setting.

The article by Duncan further reinforced by assumption that more research needs to be done on learning progressions. Much like Steedle and Shavelson, Duncan discussed the variability that comes into effect when applying learning progressions to the classroom. The variations between classrooms have the potential to be quite drastic, only further increasing the difficulty in successfully using learning progressions. One point that I found interesting was the idea that LPs may function more like theoretical constructs in that they cannot be specifically applied to one finite situation. If this is the case, do we have enough research about how students learn to be able to successfully apply something like this to a classroom?

I found the article written by Wilson to be a bit confusing. His aim at simplifying learning progressions by developing construct maps was something that didn’t make too much sense to me. This may be because of my lack of knowledge about learning progressions, but I’m not sure. Although I found this article to be confusing, I did like the point that Wilson made about assessment. He basically stated that assessments need to be created for learning progressions instead of molding learning progressions to fit the designed assessments. I think that this is one of the major flaws of our current school system. Currently, curriculum is developed to fit with standardized assessments, which I believe can greatly hinder learning in the classroom.

The article that I found most interesting and most applicable to my current understanding of learning is the article by Songer et al. This article stated that learning progressions (content and inquiry progressions) cannot be analyzed empirically; instead, they lend themselves to the development of products with the potential to be analyzed empirically. As Duncan stated, LPs may just be theoretical constructs, and thus, they would not be able to be analyzed empricially. If assessments could be developed to properly analyze the content, I believe that learning progressions could become a very effective tool to monitor student learning. 

Based on all of the readings for this week, I have come to the conclusion that LPs function (at least for the moment) as research tools. Researchers have not yet established a specific way to utilize them in a classroom effectively. As mentioned in Taking Science to School, LPs have led to the creation of standards that have developed into national standards. Although the learning progressions have led to the development of national standards, I believe that they may have very different impacts in different classroom environments. Anderson showed that the implications of learning progressions may also differ depending upon the grade level. Learning becomes a more complex process as students age and the knowledge becomes more complex.

With all this being said, I enjoyed learning more about a topic with which I was totally unfamiliar. As more research continues to be done, it will be very interesting to see how learning progressions can be utilized as tools in a classroom environment. 

While reading about learning progressions, I came to a sudden realization…”Why WOULDN’T I teach using a learning progression of some sort?”  The alternative is simply random and haphazzard skills and information, which simply doesn’t make sense to most of us.  On the other hand, I found myself wondering why these authors were trying to oversimplify intellectual development into a stepwise, lock-step routine. (Answer: People always try to oversimplify. (McDonald, personal communication, 2010). 

Steedle found that their confirmatory model did not match expectations, especially at the lower end of understanding.  I love the fact that they did not overstate their findings for the sake of their project, but brings up an important point: if there is a learning progression for forces….we haven’t found it yet.  However, I love the way that they use multiple choice tests as diagnostic.  I typically do not use multiple choice assessments, but am thinking that for purposes of differentiation, carefully developed multiple choice quizzes can help determine groups of students for learning activities. 

Wilson’s article discussed the designing of “construct maps”  and the BEAR assessment system.  They found that similar to Steedle, the progression is much more difficult than they anticipated.  Additionally, I wish people would quit using seasons and moon phases for every research project!  In my estimation, everyone puts these topics too early in the progression.  Conceptually, it is a difficult three-dimensional visual-spatial representation that most adolescents are 1) not ready for or 2) will not ever be able to do.  In either case, the only way to feign understanding is to memorize what the teacher says or the model they used.

Duncan points out (as do others) that LPs are not new, educational psychologist have tried to simplify learning for years!  Its aims are noble: to better align curriculum, instruction, and assessment.  Duncan points out, though, that one of the major difficulties in constructing LPs is that people can’t agree on what the progressions are.  There are so many nuances to learning that it is very subjective to label the stages.  It is especially difficult to standardize the “grain size” of the big ideas/skills. 

Songer points out (as did Steedle), that assessment based on a learning progression is more useful than other existing standardized assessments.  This is not groundbreaking, but it does underscore the point that multiple choice tests with one correct answer and three “fillers” is not useful (most of us could pass MC tests on about any topic just based on sound test-taking strategies).  On the other hand, if you can anticipate the incorrect responses, why aren’t you creating learning experiences to make those answers seem wrong?

Learning progressions….another attempt at oversimplifying a complex process.  And FAILED! 

I found this week’s readings to be a bit more enlightening regarding some of the different conceptual change and cognitive camps, and generally very interesting.  Having not read any of Piaget’s work yet, I was interested in the diSessa summary of some of Piaget’s work.  A couple interesting points stood out to me about what Piaget was stating in his work.  First, the idea of genetic epistemology, that ideas and thinking grow gradually (diSessa 267).  This immediately brought to mind some of the learning progressions we have seen in past classes.   How do we define what each age group should know?  Was Piaget a driving influence on creating this timeline for conceptual jumps?

Another piece of information that diSessa talked about in regard to Piaget was how he was trying to develop an “encompassing, domain independent theory of intelligence, where changes in conceptualization in multiple domains all reflected common, core differences in thinking.” (diSessa 267) I found this statement to be really intriguing.  During my student teaching, I have heard multiple teachers complain about how some kids are academic in some areas, but not up to snuff in other areas.  So are students advanced or gifted in some subjects, but not others?  I tend to think that some students naturally click with certain subjects, perhaps due to motivation or interest, or perhaps because they are naturally gifted in certain domains of thinking.  But reading this statement about Piaget, I get the impression that he would disagree with this line of thought; core differences in thinking should exist between different levels of intelligence, independent of the domain.  I am not sure I completely agree with this.

Finally, after reading the Greeno article, I am still trying to define for myself where I stand on the side of cognitive vs. situated learning.  Certainly we all can work on things by ourselves, practice to get better, etc.  But I am still trying to put together how transfer comes into play fully with situated learning situations, and what levels of transfer we can expect to occur and still remain in the situated realm.  From my own experiences, I have found that I learn specific skills from specific group interactions that translate to that group scenario.  While there is a base level of skills that transfer from scenario to scenario, I find that whenever I would enter a new area, it took me time to participate in the social setting of this area to get up to speed on what exactly was going on, and what exactly I needed to do to be successful.  I guess I need to do some more reading and talking with others to refine this down for my own theory.    

diSessa’s article clarified a point that I had been realizing the past few weeks…there is no “unified” cognitive nor “unified” situative theory.  Although we can oversimplify and generally put people into groups (as we do with Democrats and Republicans), ideas differ quite greatly amongst the groups.  The main difference, though, lies in where the focus of learning is directed, in the head, or in the group.

My favorite section of the article was about knowledge in pieces.  I was left wanting more from conceptual change than simply misconceptions.  Although they are a good topic for research articles, the majority of learning is not about misconceptions.  Ohm’s p-prim (effort begets results, and resistance begets less results) is intriguing, and also requires explanation of motivation (a la Pintrich, et al). Hewson (1998) points out that the process of metacognition as a mediator of conceptual change requires a more active role of the student which can be further confounded by the motivational aspect.  The analogy of the kalaidoscope was poignant, though,  because it explains how students with the same learning experiences produce drastically different results.

The final point worth mentioning was diSessa’s opinion that no innovative interventions stand out from other good instruction.  He further points out that the use of analogies, metaphors, and visual aids are theory-independent.  This seems to suggest to me that we are still missing a key aspect of learning.  No kidding.

            This week’s readings definitely provided some clarity for me in terms of the theoretical framework. I have spent the past week struggling to synthesize all of the readings that we have completed into finite and concise summaries, and these readings presented me with a glimpse of how I can do that for myself.

            The article by Blumenfeld provided me with the basic overview of the theories (including their limitations) that I needed at this point in my struggle to gather my thoughts regarding the different theories we have discussed this semester. Blumenfeld also presented concrete ways in which researchers have tried implanting situated instruction into the classroom. Because I am relatively new to reading about educational research, I had never heard about the various programs currently being employed in the classroom.

I have struggled over the past couple months with trying to find exact implications for these theories in classroom practice. Greeno even recognized that putting theory into practice within the classroom may present more similarities between the theories than seen in strictly theoretical discussions:“In a situative study, individual cognition is considered in relation to more general patterns of interaction” (p.84). When discussing various aspects of situated research, Greeno states:”The goal is to understand cognition as the interaction among participants and tools in the context of an activity. For this reason, it is often said that the situated perspectived studies distributed cognition,” (p.84). Again, Greeno recognizes that situated studies may include an examination of the cognitive approach to learning. I find myself struggling with this point. Maybe the situative and cognitive perspectives aren’t two exclusive entities, as I previously believed. Are the theories truly on opposite side of the spectrum, or is the work of Greeno just somewhere more towards the center of the spectrum than the other situated theorists that we’ve read about this semester?

            Blumenfeld also recognized the struggle that teachers often face when implying new techniques in the classroom. Through the discussion of project-based learning, Blumenfeld discussed that it took the teachers several years to be able to apply this proves of teaching to their classrooms. I think that the most interesting point in this discussion was when Blumenfeld recognized that teachers often take an approach and adapt it to fit their unique classrooms. This is something that I have known teachers to do, however, we have not discussed this within the context of these theoretical frameworks. Again, I return to the point that I have made many times before: I think that I read these frameworks and looked for examples of how they could fit directly into a classroom without recognizing the opportunity for teacher adaptation. Could this be the reason why I have struggled to really understand the influences of these different theories on the school system?

            The diSessa reading functioned as mainly a summary of the cognitive perspective for me. DiSessa made me think about misconceptions in terms of their positive and negative influences on learning, as opposed to just a discussion of what misconceptions are. Misconceptions may not be as detrimental to student learning as I sometimes think. As long as the teacher approaches the misconceptions in a manner that can provoke discussion and alter them, they may function as a successful learning tool in the classroom. Is this a difficult task to accomplish? I believe so, but if done correctly, I think that it can be very beneficial. 

            After this week’s readings I feel as though I have a better understanding of the preceding theories that theoretical frameworks have developed in response to.  I enjoyed the Blumenfeld et al. article, Chapter 4: Teaching for Understanding, because it gave a thorough synopsis of many of the concepts we have discussed in class over the last few weeks. Blumenfeld et al. discussed the branches of constructivism, and although they are very different I was able to pick up on how they can relate.   On page 830-831 a quotation from Bruer demonstrated a bridge between the cognitive and sociocultural theories that I had trouble connecting in the past.  It states,  “The significance of sociocultural context, communities and discourse for cognition and learning…emerged in part because researchers have attempted to apply cognitive science to authentic classroom tasks rather than just artificial laboratory tasks..focused on individual problem solvers… when researchers brought ideas about domain specific trajectories, active learning, and metacognition to the classroom they realized that other factors influenced learning as well…” (Bruer 1995).  Although I am still trying to find my own grounding of what I deem to by my definition of how learning takes place, I do know that I believe that it is a mix of the cognitive and sociocultural activities that allow for the process to occur.  The programs that were designed as examples of the constructivist theories were interesting applications to what the theoretical framework provided.  In particular, the Project-Based Science caught my eye.  It seems like a tactic that provides reason and drive to doing an activity. I could see projects and problems that are found in the real world, to be something that could motivate the students to become a part of a scientific community, rather than just passively learning through an independent approach.  The goal of Blumenfeld et al. was to find ways to make the theories into practical techniques in the classroom, but the most important thing is to gain the support of current and future teachers.  As in all professions, teachers need to be developing themselves and changing how they teach their class in order to find the way that learning occurs best. 

            diSessa’s A History of Conceptual Change Research pointed out that the term “concept” is something that is so loosely defined by theorists, even though it is crucial to what entails a misconception.  As quoted on page 269, Toulmin stated, “The term concept is one that everybody uses and nobody explains – still less defines.” In general I feel like I find myself struggling to understand what the theorists are implying based off of the terminology that they use to convey their theory of learning. I did like that this reading also touched base with other readings that we have read earlier in the semester.  I found it interesting that Posner et al.‘s theory was not meant to be something for instruction.  I guess when I first read that article I assumed it was something that should be automatically translated into the classroom, while it was quite different- it was something that simply supported a theoretical framework. 

            Lastly, Greeno’s Learning in Activity also provided a lot of background on the development of theories.  I was confused in particular on page 82 of the reading, under the subtitle- “Including Interaction in Cognitive Analysis.” Was Greeno implying that due to the way experimentation takes place it is impossible to find the activity and tools of an individual through experimentation, and rather this is why the activity system needs to be looked at?  I don’t know why, but I have trouble understanding Greeno’s point here.  If he is saying that people can’t be studied because the social context changes, what good would any experiment have then in his point of view?

I often wonder when reading research articles such as these about what these classes actually look like.  Do the authors just do a great job writing that makes these classes look like supremely productive, democratic, organized, and efficient places to learn, or are they just such effective teachers that the students respond so well?  They just don’t seem to look like what my class looks like/sounds like.

I have a few points from the articles:

1) I love the idea of putting Camila in “the hot seat.” Again, we could argue that the learning was happening because of the social context, while another would say it was entirely cognitive.  No matter how it happens, putting her in a position to have to explain/defend her thoughts puts a lot more pressure on her to form a strong understanding, and I think that this kind of pressure can be an effective means of motivation.  However, the amount of skill needed by the teacher to coordinate and conduct these “science talk” lessons is great, and I think carries a steep learning curve for the teacher as well as the students.

2) In the Chin/Osbourne article, I found myself again questioning if this “acting like scientists” approach is as valuable as they are trying to proclaim.  First, the 12-14 students are more insightful than any group I’ve ever been associated with.  While this is a very positive aspect for the classes in the article, students with enough science knowledge and awareness are not difficult to teach, no matter the arrangement of the class.  However, I love the structured norms of question webs and explicit instruction of how to carry on these scientific arguments.  On the other hand, one of the arguments we’ve had before is whether participation in traditional instruction is just another social norm that is learned, so too, I would argue that these “science talks” are a learned social engagement that bears little resemblance to the collaborations I’ve been a part of in my days of being a “real” scientist.

3) Varelas made me realize that having different styles of teachers is essential.  If I would have had myself for a teacher, I’d have loved it….obviously, I teach the way I think works best.  On the other hand, I know some students to not like my intensity, sarcasm, and desire to compete.  In the classes I’ve had where I had to role play or dance around the room re-creating mitosis, I despise going to class!  These different styles allow for a variety, and as long as the teacher motivates, engages, and has the students take ownership of the class…all styles have to potential to be effective.

In reading the back and forth between Anderson’s group and Greeno, I found the main issue to be what is individual and what is socially constructed.  Sports seemed to be a focal point for both camps, with Anderson highlighting the benefits of individual practice before group activity, while Greeno emphasizing that individual skills training doesn’t translate well to group activity if not properly framed in the context of the whole.   But how does this apply to learning, or to how I can find useful techniques to teach students?

One way I thought about applying this to teaching was how to construct group vs. individual instruction.  Greeno says that social organization of activities is needed for learning to take place, and individual skill learning could take longer to put together in the proper sequence.   Greeno seems to recognize that individual skill refinement is appropriate and even needed, but the function in the whole is the goal of the practice.  Basically, if an individual cannot function properly in a social context, the skill learning is useless and the person really hasn’t learned at all.  I thought these were pretty significant statements regarding goals of instruction.  What about assessing the performance of the individual?  Can we simply assess their skills on their own (typical test design), or must we assess the function of the whole group?

During my first Master’s degree schoolwork, every assignment we did was group oriented.  We were graded as a group for every assignment, and it really put the onus on the group to function efficiently and work well together.  Needless to say, the first semester didn’t go so well.  Just as Anderson talked about concerning group activity, there was the person who worked all the time, the slacker, etc.  After barely surviving the group experience the first semester, we re-formed new groups for the spring semester.  This group worked much better because we broke our assignments up into individual parts and we all went our own way to complete the work, bringing it together at the end to turn the assignments in or make presentations.  I am not sure which method served me to learn better.  In the first scenario, I was involved in all aspects from beginning to end, and had the big picture in mind, but my motivation to keep performing really fell off by the end of the semester when others in the group would sit back and let a few of us do all the work (counter to some of what Greeno implied about motivation).  However, working individually and coming together at the end to present the material often didn’t provide me with the big picture of what we had to do, I just had to learn my part.  In this sense, was I really learning how to be an effective member of a social context, or did we just learn how to better accomplish the end goal of completing our assignments? 

One more quick thing we can discuss was what Greeno states is socially constructed vs. what I thought Anderson implies is socially constructed.  When Greeno talks of books or computers being social medium, while I know that they were results of social contexts to produce such medium, is it really a social endeavor when reading a book by oneself?  If this is true, then what really is not socially constructed in our lives?  Is there anything we can really do that doesn’t have some social context to it?   

            Greeno and Anderson et al. underwent an insightful theoretical debate about the influence of cognitive learning theory verse situated learning theory and the role they play in learning.  After reading all four of the articles, the article that they wrote together titled, Perspectives on Learning, Thinking, and Activity was enjoyable to read because it is the first time that I could connect two learning theories together, rather than viewed them as separate entities.  Of course they are very political in the way they defined how the theories were similar, yet it was nice to hear theorist agree that their theory was not the be all end all.  For an example of how they carefully connected their theories, on page 11 of this article it was stated, “In our view, both perspectives, as part of the liberal tradition, can find, albeit with varying emphases and degrees of success, ways of paying respect to the importance of human individuality, the importance of social practices, and the importance of education to the development of individual identity and to the advancement of a fair, just, caring, and productive society.”  I found this article the easiest to relate to yet, because to me learning is so much more than just social or cognitive, rather it is a mix of both.  Sometimes when I read the articles I lose sight that the theorist take note and recognize some of the positives of another theory, and are also able to recognize the faults in their own.   

            I think that the reasoning of Anderson et al. in the article titled, Situated Learning and Cognition made a point that really hit me as something that I see necessary for successful learning.  On page 8 they make mention that the modern information-processing theories in cognitive psychology are suggesting that both abstract instruction and illustrations and examples are necessary of learning.  This idea made me think of the Math140B course offered up here at school.  In this course the teacher doesn’t only give abstract information to the students on how to solve the math problems, but an application to how it relates to biological processes and other scientific ideas are discussed.  As a learner I feel that the abstract information helps to organize the situated examples. 

            As far as Greeno’s article Response: On Claims That Answer the Wrong Questions I thought the problem based learning example on page 10 was a great display of how individual work can become more meaningful when in a social context.  Greeno makes the argument that situated learning does not exclude individual learning, but rather it helps to make learning more meaningful.  Right now Kristyn and I are developing a PBL lesson plan for a high school class.  One of the reasons why I am attracted to the idea is because I think the context the problem provides the student, allows the student to find more significance in the application of the material.

            In Anderson et al.‘s final response back to Greeno’s article, I found it entertaining how they analyzed Greeno’s work.  I tended to agree that many times the language of Greeno seemed a bit unclear and hard to actually understand how it was derived from what Anderson et al. had said.  Many times the questions seemed to be reworded in order to just explain a point that they just wanted to get at, without it being directly related.  On page 19 of the article titled Rejoinder: Situative verseus Cognitive Perspectives: Form versus Substance, Anderson et al. points stated “Elsewhere in this section Greeno says, “The dispute is about whether to understand these processes simply as the acquisition of skills, in which it does not matter whether student understand how what they are learning relates to anything other than school.”  We decry this “mere skill” terminology and its implications of irrelevance that have taken hold in situated language.  Our dictionary defines a skill as “the ability to use one’s knowledge effectively and readily; a learned power of doing a thing competently.””  I found this part of the article interesting because it points out how the language of the situated learning theory to be very confusing and potentially the opposite of the point that Greeno was trying to make. 

            Overall, I found that these four articles to be helpful in making me think which end of the learning theory spectrum I am starting to fall into.  It is nice to read how they can be viewed to complement one another.  In these articles I believe that Anderson et al. provided an argument that I found a bit more convincing than Greeno did.  However their ideas for future research and need for development in their own theories were something that could be used to judge how the theories have progressed.