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7 How Students Learn (Science in the Classroom)

Donovan, S. & Bransford, J. (Ed.) (2005). How students learn: science in the classroom. Washington DC:The National Academies Press. Description This book is a teacher focused interpretation of the report from the How People Learn (HPL) team at the US National Research Council of the National Academies, with particular application for the disciplines of history, mathematics and science.
A free online version is available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11102. Three different versions of the book available, one each for mathematics, science and history.

Summary: The HPL team synthesised the last few decade's research of cognitive and neuroscience research into these three key principles for learning:

1. The need to engage prior understanding: New understandings are constructed on a foundation of existing understandings and experiences. The role played by preconceptions is discussed. This is classic constructivism. Andrea Di Sessa's 1982 experiment of physics conceptions held by undergraduate physics students is reviewed in this context.

2. The Essential Role of Factual Knowledge and Conceptual Frameworks in Understanding. The HPL team emphasise the need for both a solid basis of factual knowledge, and conceptual frameworks to hold these facts and concepts together. Competent performance is built on neither factual nor conceptual understanding alone: the concepts take on meaning in the knowledge rich contexts in which they are applied (p. 6).

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E. Nordin Zuber (Semester 1)

#2.7 How Students Learn (Science in the Classroom)

Studies of experts and novices demonstrate that experts know considerably more relevant detail than novices in tasks within their domain and have better memory for these details, but the reason they remember more is that what novices see as separate pieces of information, experts see as organised sets of ideas (p. 7, italics mine). In other words we need to find a good balance of both traditional fact based approaches and newer, richer approaches to themes, concepts and symbolic representations of the interconnections of this knowledge. The traditional approaches weren't totally wrong just missing an important part of the picture: building the context, the patterns, the inter-relationships. The more extreme experiments in student-discovery and personal constructivism did not produce the hoped for results because the requisite critical mass of declarative knowledge and social framework was not present. 3. The Importance of Self-Monitoring (Meta-cognitive skills): Self monitoring enables students to develop the ability to take control of their own learning. The ideas of planning, understanding how to obtain knowledge and skills in a discipline, how to approach problems, participating in self- and peer- review: all these enhance metacognitive abilities and contribute to expert learning. The Evidence based approach (Hattie, 2003), (Petty, 2006), (Marzano, 2007) strongly confirms the value of developing meta-cognitive skills these skills feature in the top ranking of student outcome effect sizes. The HPL people then create a Learning Environment framework based on looking at learning from the perspectives of: the learner, the knowledge and the assessment, wrapped in a classroom community environment which is hopefully a positive culture of questioning, respect and risk-taking (p.13) In the context of science instruction, the HPL approach highlights the importance of identifying the core concepts that organise the subject, and

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E. Nordin Zuber (Semester 1)

#2.7 How Students Learn (Science in the Classroom)

looking for concrete cases and detailed knowledge which will allow students to master those concepts (p.15) The discussion on preconceptions is essentially the same as the work previously covered in other readings and coursework. Student preconceptions on knowledge generation: Many students don't understand experimentation as a method to test ideas rather they view it as a way to produce desired outcomes. They also typically do not understand the idea of a control variable. Students typically think of models as physical copies of reality. Changing a model often is interpreted as just adding more to it or replacing a part that was wrong Interpretation of data: Students uncritically infer cause from correlation (p.403) (Hmm.. most adults do that too!) Inadequacy of Arguments: most students accept arguments from data samples of inadequate size, or statistically insignificant differences. (Again adults do that too). Emphasis on the necessity for learning, and importance in science, of imagination and thinking time. Creating recipes for experiments shortchanges observation, imagination and reasoning (p. 405) Without imagination, science is dry and highly mechanical (p. 406) Three chapters showing the teaching of some science topics at different school ages, using the HPL approach: Teaching Light to elementary students (Magnusson & Palincsar) Teaching gravity as a guided inquiry in middle school (Minstrell & Kraus) Model based inquiry for teaching genetics (Steward, Cartier & Passmore) Over 30 pages explanation per topic, showing the HPL ideas in action.

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E. Nordin Zuber (Semester 1)

#2.7 How Students Learn (Science in the Classroom)

Reflections: I've found the HPL approach most beneficial to integrate the strengths of the different cognitive and pedagogical approaches into what seems to be a well rounded practice. The traditional-versus-progressive, teacher-centredversus-student-centred debates lose their invective when you can see how they all look at the same problem from different lenses and each has something to offer us. Based on the readings the Goodrum and Tytler reports, clearly the balance of science teaching as practised in the classroom, needs to shift to a more student-centred approach, implementing the learnings from both constructivist and social constructivism. The cognitive scientists and the educational psychology people are more in agreement than disagreement we need to move these understandings into the 'actual' classroom. One area not emphasised in the HPL approach, or in fact in the Goodrum or Tytler reports, is an explicit discussion of the Piagetian stages of cognitive development and the havoc this makes with attempts to teach abstract ideas to concrete operational children. While this theory is not emphasised today, the evidence gathered in the 1980's and early 1990's looks very convincing that this effect is real and affects our teaching. The incredible detail in this book on approaches to teaching light, gravity and genetics are a resource I shall be reusing in future!

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E. Nordin Zuber (Semester 1)