Understanding Alternative Conceptions: Constructivism & Concept Change

1. Alternative Conceptions, Concept Change, and Constructivism

2. Alternative Conceptions • Students come to science class with alternative conceptions of the real world that are highly resistant preconceptions • misconceptions • Alternative conceptions are: • misapplied conceptions based upon an Aristotelian world view. • “naive” attempts to explain the natural world. • highly resistant to change. • Can you think of any? (“Fish is Fish”)

3. Examples from Mechanics • Under the influence of constant force, objects move with constant velocity. • The velocity of an object is proportional to the magnitude of the applied force. • In the absence of a force, objects are either at rest or, if moving, are slowing down. • Heavier objects fall faster. • If an object is at rest, it cannot be accelerating.

4. Research-based Claim 1 Learners come to formal science instruction with a diverse set of alternative conceptions concerning natural objects and events. • Physics • Chemistry • Biology • Earth Science

5. Research-based Claim 2 The alternative conceptions that learners bring to formal science instruction cut across age, ability, gender, and cultural boundaries.

6. Research-based Claim 3 Alternative conceptions are tenacious and resistant to extinction by conventional teaching strategies.

7. Research-based Claim 4 Alternative conceptions often parallel explanations of natural phenomena offered by previous generations of scientists and philosophers

8. Research-based Claim 5 Alternative conceptions have their origins in a diverse set of personal experiences including direct observation and perception, peer culture, and language, as well as in teachers’ explanations and instructional materials.

9. Research-based Claim 6 Teachers often subscribe to the same alternative conceptions as their students.

10. Research-based Claim 7 Learners’ prior knowledge interacts with knowledge presented in formal instruction, resulting in a diverse of unintended learning outcomes. • the alcoholic and the prohibitionist • the boy who called wolf

11. Research-based Claim 8 Instructional approaches that facilitate conceptual change can be effective classroom tools • cooperative learning • inquiry • discovery • discrepant events

12. Good Secondary Sources for Information Concerning Alternative Conceptions are: • Handbook for Research on Science Teaching and Learning • Operation Physics Handbook • Physics begins with an M • Physics begins with another M • C 3P http://phys.udallas.edu/altconcp.html

13. Constructivism Broadly Defined • A method of teaching that accepts the idea that knowledge is not “learned;” rather, it is constructed. • students are neither tabla rasa to be “written upon” nor empty containers to be filled • learning is a process of the student, not the teacher • A method of teaching that sees the students as actors rather than spectators.

14. Why Constructivism? • Expository approaches might work in the classroom setting, but resistance is evident ex post facto in out-of-class experiences. • Constructivism rejects the notion that one can simply pass on information to learners, expect that a understanding will result, and that a lasting impression will be made.

15. The Good • Students learn best when they construct new meaning for themselves by confronting their preconceptions. • Lasting impressions can be made and actual learning can take place. • Students can come to know how science works by observing first hand and participating directly in the scientific process. • Constructivism is consistent with discovery, inquiry, and cooperative learning.

16. The Bad • The problems of personal relativism and hyper-incredulity. • Science is a public discipline, not to private reality. • Justification of knowledge is a socio-political process of consensus building. • Science knowledge is discovered, not created.

17. Concept Change • Concept change occurs when alternative conceptions are directly addressed - not merely papered over. • Only by directly confronting alternative conceptions can physics teachers hope to make any lasting change in conceptual understanding of students.

18. Dealing with Preconceptions • Elicit • Confront • Resolve

19. Elicit Preconceptions • Recognize that alternate conceptions exist. • Probe for students’ preconceptions through demonstrations, questions, and white boarding. • Ask students to clarify their statements.

20. Confront Preconceptions • Provide contradictions to students' preconceptions through questions, implications, and demonstrations. • Encourage discussion, urging students to apply physical concepts in reasoning.

21. Resolve Misconceptions • Foster the replacement of preconception with: • questions, • thought experiments, • demonstrations, • hypothetical situations, • experiments designed to test hypotheses. • Reevaluate students' understanding by posing conceptual questions.

22. Resources • Look into the book “Children’s Ideas in Science.” Evidently it contains a list of alternative conceptions. • Operation Physics refers to preconceptions repeatedly.