An Analysis of

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An Analysis of the Pupil as Scientist Analogies

• Yang, Wen-Gin
• GISE, NTNU, Taiwan, ROC
• Email wgy_at_cc.ntnu.edu.tw

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Understanding by making analogies

• How pupils understand the social world --The
  child as sociologist
• How people build interpersonal relationships--
  lay person as psychologist
• How people make sense of their world --
  man-the-scientist or people as naïve scientist

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A Two Dimensional Framework

• Individual Versus Social Dimension
• individual or social aspects focused?
• Conceptual Versus Interactive Dimension
• Conceptual understanding or interaction processes
  examined?

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Four Categories
Interactive
Cobb, Wood Yackel (1991), Roth Bowen (1995),
Meyer Woodruff (1997), Richmond Striley
(1996).
Fosnot (1996), Driver (1989), Driver, Asoko,
Leach, Mortimer, Scott (1994), Chaille
Britain (1997).
Social
Individual
Driver (1983), Chinn Brewer (1993, 1998),
Strike Posner (1992), Posner, Strike, Hewson,
Gertzog (1982), Chaille Britain (1997).
Huang (1994), Chiang (1995), Woodruff Meyer
(1997), Kelly Crawford (1996)
Conceptual
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Individual-Conceptual Analogies

• Based upon scientific epistemological
  commitments, the robustness of pre-conceptions,
  the role of anomalies in scientific theory
  changes, and so on.
• Viewing an individual student as a scientist and
  primarily explore issues related to students'
  conceptual learning or conceptual changes.

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Examples of Individual-Conceptual Analogies

• Drivers The Pupil as Scientist? (1983)
• Although pupils idea are less sophisticated than
  those of practicing scientists, some interesting
  parallels can be drawn
• Pupils, like scientists, view the world through
  the spectacles of their own preconceptions, and
  many have difficulty in in making the journey
  from their own intuitions to the ideas presented
  in science lessons.

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• Duschl(1990)
• The sameness of the underlying principles of both
  individual science learning and the growth of
  knowledge in science
• Nersessian(1989)
• both the nature of the changes that need to be
  made in conceptual restructuring and the kinds of
  reasoning involved in the process of constructing
  a scientific representation are the same for
  scientists and students of science. That is, the
  cognitive dimension of the two processes is
  fundamentally the same

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• PSHG Model for Conceptual Change (1982/92)
• Acknowledged T. Kuhns epistemological and
  sociological accounts of conceptual changes in
  science
• Based upon obvious reasons, the (sociological
  accounts ) is of limited value in explaining the
  cognitive growth of students
• Stressed on the conceptual ecology of individual
  student
• Viewed science learning as an individualistic
  process

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• Chinn Brewer (1998/1993)
• the use of anomalous data in the classroom has
  been guided by the assumption that in many
  fundamental ways science students -- including
  children -- are like scientists.
• Four assumptions
• Like scientists, science students possess beliefs
  about how the physical world operates.
• Both scientists and science students can detect
  anomalies.
• Science students are like scientists in that they
  recognize that these anomalies pose a threat to
  their current theories.
• Like scientists, science students will sometimes
  choose to adopt an alternative theory in response
  to data that are anomalous for their prior theory.

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• Chaille Britain (1997) The Young Child as
  Scientist
• many of the traits associated with a scientist --
  experimentation, curiosity, creativity, theory
  testing -- are also typical of young children
• Summary
• a lone child struggles single handed to strike
  some equilibrium between assimilating the world
  to himself or himself to the world (Edwards
  Mercer, 1987)

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Individual-Interactive Analogies

• Drawing from the nature of the social
  construction of scientific knowledge, the needs
  of the physical and social environments of the
  scientist, the dialectical nature of the
  individual and society, and so on.
• Stressing the issues related to how language,
  social factors, culture, and peers or teachers
  influence the meaning making in pupils
  experience.

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• Examples of Individual-Conceptual Analogies
• Driver(1989)
• Scientific ideas and theories not only result
  from the interaction of individuals with
  phenomena but also pass through a complex process
  involving communication and checking through
  major social institutions of science.
• Entities such as atoms, electrons, ions, fields,
  and fluxes, genes and chromosomes....are
  constructed and transmitted through the culture
  and social institutions of science.
• Learning science involves being initiated into
  the culture of science. (p. 85)

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• Fosnot(1996)
• Drawn heavily on physicists' studies of the
  nature of the atom and biologists' investigations
  on the relationships between an organism and its
  environment, relationship between an individual's
  meaning making and symbols, others and medium was
  proposed.

Fosnot's constructivist learning model
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Social-Conceptual Analogies

• Possible theoretical backgrounds could be the
  paradigmatic-like descriptions of theory changes
  in science and the varieties of science studies.
• Group understanding and how it relates to an
  individual's sense making are stressed by this
  type of analogy.

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• Woodruff Meyer (1997)
• Based on Dunbar, Latour and Peras works
• scientists construct knowledge in two very
  different kinds of communities. One community
  thrives within the scientist's laboratory
  (intra-laboratory), while the other exists in the
  community at large (inter-laboratories). All
  scientists are members of both types of
  communities.

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• The inter-laboratory community provides the
  public forum for scientists. This forum sets and
  applies a discipline's standards and benchmarks
  and supports the arbitration that lets the
  discipline advance. These environments are
  high-risk forums for scientists' egos and
  careers.
• Intra-laboratory communities, by and large, are
  private and low risk environments. Scientists use
  this private forum to discuss ideas that are not
  fully worked out without high risk to their ego
  or career.

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• Science classroom could support both intra- and
  inter-laboratory type communities.
• Small cooperatively oriented groups are capable
  of providing the low risk environments to develop
  and nurture ideas jointly.
• The entire class may be working as an
  inter-laboratory community that is establishing
  and maintaining standards and benchmarks as the
  class advances it understanding.

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• Kelly Crawford (1997)
• Based upon SSK
• The conception of Conceptual Ecology
• Viewing meaning as of a group, not an individual,
  and therefore viewed the substance of cognition
  as social.
• An example
• Chiang (1995)
• Classroom discussion of Image of Scientist

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• Both scientific and science student communities
  tend to be viewed as a whole. Every member is
  viewed as an integrated part of the given
  community to which they belong.
• The conceptual understanding of a given community
  (e.g., group's mind) is the main issue addressed.

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Social-Interactive Analogies

• Based upon the sociology of scientific knowledge,
  social studies of science, ethnographic and
  ethnomethodological studies of science, and so
  on.
• The primarily focused on the social mechanisms
  for reaching group understandings and the effects
  of group structures on intra- and inter-groups
  interactions.

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• Meyer and Woodruff (1997)
• Identified three mechanisms underlying the
  consensus building processes during students
  inquiry discourse
• Richmond and Striley (1996)
• knowledge building will be shaped in particular
  ways by students' interactions with one another,
  and that, not unlike what occurs in scientific
  communities, this construction will be shaped and
  validated largely by peers with whom they work
  and with whom they share certain goals

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• Cobb, wood and Yackel (1991)
• The evolving tradition in the classroom --
  communal story
• Roth and Bowen (1995)
• Investigating the nature of classroom learning in
  terms of three levels
• Individual
• Small group
• classroom

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• Individual level analysis
• Although we have taken a close look at Miles's (a
  subject's name) understandings, we want to stress
  that these understanding developed through an
  active interchange with both physical and social
  environments. Through a continuous exchange of
  ideas with his partner, by communicating his
  understandings to other students, and by
  interacting with the teacher and other adults,
  Miles constructed new understandings as a member
  of a classroom community so that his knowing and
  learning cannot be understood in isolation from
  the social aspects of the learning environment.
  (p. 124)

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Discussion

• Is it appropriate to make Pupil-as-Scientist
  analogies?
• Gap between individualistic and social
  orientations?
• Relationship between Science Studies and
  Science Student Study?
• The Nature of Science or Natures of Sciences?

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The appropriateness of The Pupil as Scientist
Analogies

• Authentic science
• Is it possible to provide pupils with real
  science experience without treat them as
  scientists?
• Is it possible to achieve scientific literacy
  without proving pupils authentic science
  experience?
• Identification of scientist
• Is there existing clear-cut demarcation between
  scientist and non-scientist

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