No abstract

No abstract

Throughout its long history, the conceptual change literature assumed that student 'misconceptions' in mechanics have been formed prior to instruction. As an attempt to shed light on conceptual change, this paper examines some of the trends in the literature and argues that misconceptions may be spontaneous rather than preformed, that schema theory may be the most appropriate theory to take into account this spontaneity, that misconceptions should also be viewed through the lens of the subject as a system of well-defined concepts and that any conceptual change model may have to be prescriptive and engage the student with a metadiscourse concerning the abstract nature of the subject.

Creativity is a very topical issue and indeed a political one. For example, the very notion of ‘little c creativity’ seems to be a reflection of the requirements of what could be described as a ‘Post-Fordist’ economy. However, the call to develop creativity in education is largely based on the idea of creativity as the production of novel ideas. The central argument of this article is that creativity cannot be seen purely in terms of novel ideas but that it is intrinsically bound with the teaching of the academic disciplines. It is within the context of creativity in the sense of transforming the disciplines that two paradoxes are discussed. The first paradox is that the truly creative act is not the preserve of the genius but the potential for the whole of humanity. Secondly, creativity involves both thinking within the constraints of the discipline and challenging those constraints. This implies the need for students to engage in meta-discourse, involving the nature and history of the subject-matter taught

Force in modern classical mechanics is unique, both in terms of its logical character and the conceptual difficulties it causes. Force is well defined by a set of axioms that not only structures mechanics but science in general. Force is also the dominant theme in the 'misconceptions' literature and many philosophers and physicists alike have expressed puzzlement as to its nature. The central point of this article is that if we taught mechanics as the forum to discuss the nature of mechanics itself, then we would serve to better secure a learner's understanding and appreciation of both science and mathematics. We will attempt to show that mechanics can provide the opportunity for students to enter this meta-discourse by engaging in Socratic discussion, entertaining thought experiments, comparisons made between force as defined within mechanics as a modern axiomatic system with Newton's quantitative definition of force, how the concepts of force prior to Galileo and Newton can be used as a teaching aid with respect to student intuitive ideas and how mathematics was brought to bear on what is given empirically. Mechanics provides this opportunity and pedagogically may require it due to its axiomatic nature.