An alternative to piagetian psychology for science and mathematics education

Abstract

In 1964, conferences were held at Cornell University and the University of California that resulted in a report entitled "Piaget Rediscovered" [ I]. This was apropos for the times, for American educators did "rediscover" Piaget's work in the 1960s and his popularity rose in part as "inquiry" and "discovery" oriented science and math curriculum innovations were promoted with large federal grants. Piaget's work, with its emphasis on the need for children to manipulate materials and thus spontaneously to advance in "cognitive operations," served as a theoretical justification for the curriculum reform movements of the 1960s.One of the reasons for the public support for curriculum improvement was the orbiting of a satellite by the U.S.S.R. in 1957 and the attendant concern with the adequacy of American education. Another reason was that textbooks and teachers were often outof-date in subject matter presented and much of what was presented was a catalog of factual information to be learned by rote. Knowledge acquired by rote learning is soon lost, and even before it is forgotten, this knowledge cannot be used effectively in problem solving. In an effort to reduce teaching practices that encouraged rote learning, new curriculum efforts, and supporting federal agencies, adopted a dogmatic adherence to "discovery approaches" [2].What was overlooked was the fact that discovery teaching approaches do not guarantee meaningful learning and that didactic or reception teaching methods can be effective in developing highly functional conceptual frameworks in our students. In short, educators had confused the rote-meaningful continuum for learning with the reception-discovery continuum for presentation. Figure 1 shows these two distinct continua and representative experiences that can be rote or meaningful in nature for both reception or discovery learning. I t was not until 1963 that Ausubel's The Psychology ofMeaningfuf Verbal Learning[ 31 appeared, and with discovery learning approaches then firmly entrenched in educational dogma, his book attracted relatively little attention in the United States. Today there is a move "back to the basics" and we are in danger of returning also to rote learning approaches. While discovery learning strategies have some important and unique educational values, it is obvious that our cultural heritage, created by geniuses over the past three or four centuries, cannot be rediscovered by our pupils in 10 or 15 years. It follows, therefore, that the central task of schools is to make expository teaching and reception learning meaningful, and I wil! argue in this paper that Ausubel's theory of

Extending the conceptual change approach to mathematics learning and teaching

“…Since the 1970s researchers such as Viennot (1979), Novak (1977) and Driver and Easley (1978) realized that students bring to the science learning task alternative frameworks or misconceptions that are robust and difficult to extinguish. Posner et al (1982) and also McCloskey (1983) saw these alternative frameworks as theories that need to be replaced by the currently accepted, correct scientific views through a process of conceptual change.…”

The effects of concept requirements and task contexts on pupils’ performance in control of variables

“…The controversy between 'content-free' (for example, Lawson 1982) and 'contentspecific' (for example , Novak 1977) approaches to science education might be a typical example of this interest.…”

Learning Science

“…An empirical research program subsequently developed (Novak, 1978), focusing upon the content of students' domain-specific reasoning (or students' alternative conceptions: Driver and Easley, 1978) about natural phenomena and involving researchers from around the world. Two particularly influential books in the development of research on students' alternative conceptions were The Pupil as Scientist by Rosalind Driver (1983) and Learning in Science: The Implications of Children's Science edited by Osborne and Freyberg (1985).…”