Proposal view
| Proposal Type: | Individual Paper |
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| Domain: | Learning and Cognitive Science |
| SIG: | Conceptual Change |
| Type | Submitted Paper |
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PC and projector |
| Paper Details |
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| Title | The role of representation in learning in science from a second generation cognitive science perspective |
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| Abstract | Recent accounts by second generation cognitive scientists of factors affecting cognition (Klein, 2006) imply the need to reconsider current dominant conceptual change theories of learning in science. These new accounts emphasize the role of context, feelings, embodied practices and narrative-based representation rather than decontextualized manipulation of symbols in learning science. In this paper we analyze data from a longitudinal study of children’s learning across the primary school years as an empirical exploration of the usefulness of the ‘second generation cognitive science’ framing of learning. Our study found that this framework provides some strong theoretical and practical insights into how children learn and the key role of representational negotiation in this learning. |
| Summary | There is growing recognition that recent accounts by second generation cognitive scientists (Barsalou, 1999; Clark, 1997; Klein, 2006) of how learners learn pose significant challenges for current understanding of learning in science. Rather than viewing this learning as conceptual change demonstrated through effective use of the denotative language of science discourse, these theorists assert the ‘expressive’ situated nature of cognition, and emphasize the more fundamental role of context, perception, identity, feelings, embodiment, metaphor, story-telling, and pattern completion in learning. From this perspective conceptual knowledge for learners is now seen more as implicit, perceptual, concrete, and variable across contexts, rather than as propositional, abstract, and decontextualized. Such a perspective puts a very strong emphasis on the role of representation in learning, implying the need for learners to use their own representational, cultural and cognitive resources to engage with the subject-specific representational practices of science. Klein’s (2006) summary of second generation cognitive science’s account of learning in science pulls together a number of separate but linked dimensions and argues these form a coherent set (Figure 1). Klein’s analysis implies the need for more complex and nuanced accounts of how students learn science. While recent studies have focused on the role of motivation and affective factors in conceptual change (Sinatra 2005) and on demonstrating the contextual complexity of students’ ideas (e.g. Tytler 1998), the usefulness of Klein’s account of this framework has not been investigated in detail. Aims of the Study and Research Methods This study utilised data from a longitudinal study of children’s learning across the primary school years to offer an empirical investigation of the plausibility and explanatory value of Klein’s framework. The research questions were: ∑ To what extent do second generation cognitive science views of learning provide generative insights into processes and factors affecting student learning in primary science? ∑ What are the implications of this framework for how we understand the way learners construct meaning and how can this be supported in classrooms? Figure 1: Klein’s contrast of first and second generation cognitive science dimensions Dimension First generation cognitive science Second generation cognitive science Construction of meaning Modelled on science text Personal, different from science text. Elements of knowledge Resolved, well defined concepts, invariant across contexts, linked by a propositional structure. Thought and language are ‘expressive’, with fuzzy, contextual, perceptually based concepts. Thinking Logic based, involving symbol manipulation. Pattern recognition and completion, associative thinking using analogy and metaphor. Language Language is denotative - a by product of thought which is the fundamental unit Thought and language are intertwined. Centrality of metaphor, narrative structures. Mind Mirrors, represents, interprets reality An adaptive organ, cognition is shared with the environment. Aesthetic, emotional Conceptual and aesthetic are separated Conceptual and aesthetic are intertwined. The method The study involved a longitudinal design in which 15 children’s science ideas were tracked across seven years of primary school. Data from interviews, collection of work samples and classroom observations, were used to build a picture of their developing understandings of key science concepts. A qualitative analysis of these children’s learning is used to explore whether Klein’s framework can provide explanatory insight into the findings. Findings Firstly, evidence of the contextual variation of children’s ideas about evaporation, with multiple “conceptions” being expressed in quick succession, contradicts the presumption that children operate with resolved concepts, and lends support to the idea of concepts being expressive, personal, and always in process. Secondly, the role of personal / aesthetic factors was evident in the way children constructed their accounts of phenomena. Evidence from children’s explanations demonstrates that understandings are inevitably embedded in rich accounts of the social and personal. The notion of “narratives of the self “ is used to capture the ways children position themselves as thinkers and learners and social members of the classroom, and how this shapes their thinking and learning in science. The findings strongly confirm the interplay of the dimensions identified by Klein’s analysis in relation to the languages of science, including the interplay of visual and verbal representation. Children often embedded their ideas in narrative accounts of past events, drawing on stories and focusing on aspects of phenomena that represented personal and inflected accounts of the topic of evaporation. A study of the children’s use of particle ideas to explain evaporation confirmed the highly personal ways in which children represent their emerging understandings, and the value of negotiating representational accounts of phenomena, as central in supporting learning. We assert that explanations in science, rather than reflecting unitary, resolved concepts, are indicative of understandings that are perceptual and emergent, and constituted through representations that are invested with personal meaning. Implications In describing how these children’s ideas progressed, it seems that at each point of comparison, Klein’s summary account provides a more realistic and insightful framework to describe the learning than a simple conceptual change account. The longitudinal design makes this apparent in a way not possible for cohort studies. However, certain features of learning highlighted by the conceptual change position, such as children’s thinking being captured by a finite sets of ideas, and substantial perspectival shifts, were also evident. We need further research exploring how these might be represented from a second generation cognitive science perspective. Second generation cognitive science views of learning open up opportunities and pose challenges for classroom practices, such as the need to accommodate the rich range of representational opportunities, and personal perspectives. References Barsalou, L. (1999). Perceptual symbol systems. Behavioural and Brain Sciences, 22 (4), 577-660. Clark, A. (1997). Being there: Putting brain, body, and world together again. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Klein, P (2006) The Challenges of Scientific Literacy: From the viewpoint of second-generation cognitive science. International Journal of Science Education. 28 (2-3), 143 – 178. Sinatra, G. (2005) The "Warming Trend" in Conceptual Change Research: The Legacy of Paul R. Pintrich. Educational Psychologist, Vol. 40, No. 2, Pages 107-115 Tytler, R. (1998). The nature of students' informal science conceptions. International Journal of Science Education. 20(8), 901-927. |
| Keywords | Cognition Conceptual change Science education |
| Appendices | |
| Authors | ||||||
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| Name | Surname | Institution | Country | EARLI Number | Presenting | |
| Vaughan | Prain | Latrobe University | Australia | v.prain@latrobe.edu.au | * | |
