Learners’ Responses to the Demands of Conceptual Change: Considerations for Effective Nature of Science Instruction

Abstract

Much has been written about how effective nature of science instruction must have a significant explicit and reflective character. However, while explicitly drawing students' attention to NOS issues is crucial, learning and teaching the NOS are essentially matters of conceptual change. In this article, how people learn and learners' responses to the demands of conceptual change are used to explain how students may exit from instruction with fundamental NOS misconceptions left intact or only slightly altered, despite being explicitly and reflectively attended to more accurate ideas. The purpose of this concept paper is to set within a theoretical framework of learning, and bring some coherence to, what has rapidly become a large body of empirical research regarding effective NOS instruction. Toward these two ends, this article: (1) illustrates how a conceptual change framework can be used to account for learners' responses to NOS instruction and what teachers might do to promote understanding NOS and transferring it to new contexts; (2) characterizes popularly advocated NOS instructional approaches along a continuum marked by increasing connection to the workings of science, and decreased ability to dismiss NOS lessons as extraneous to authentic science; and (3) proposes that NOS instruction would likely be more effective if teachers deliberately scaffolded classroom experiences and students' developing NOS understanding back and forth along the continuum.

Nature of Science Progression in School Year 1–9: a Case Study of Teachers’ Suggestions and Rationales

“…However, regardless of perspective, science education researchers agree that an important task for science education is to change or broaden students' perspectives on NOS. This is due to school science often having a narrow focus on logical and conceptual elements (Clough 2006;Duschl et al 2006), causing students to hold a simplistic picture of scientific knowledge as absolute facts emanating from observations that automatically provide true answers about nature (Lederman 1992). In order to challenge these views, science education needs to provide students with a wide variety of perspectives on different aspects of NOS.…”

Finnish Mathematics Teaching from a Reform Perspective: A Video-Based Case-Study Analysis

“…Implicit instruction, on the other hand, typically occurs when teachers provide students with tasks from which meaning may be inferred with appropriate teacher support and guidance (Koike and Pearson 2005;Manset-Williamson and Nelson 2005;Martínez-Flor and Fukuya 2005). However, in the context of science teaching in general and the nature of science in particular, implicit instruction assumes that by doing science, particularly hands-on, inquiry-based activities, students will acquire an un-FINNISH MATHEMATICS TEACHING derstanding independently of teacher support (Khishfe and Abd-El-Khalick 2002;Clough 2006). Thus, implicit instruction is conventionally construed as the management of incidental learning (Radwan 2005), although there is variation, according to subject tradition, with respect to whether teachers play explicit roles in this process.…”

“…In this respect, there were frequent episodes in all four sequences that could be construed as encouraging incidental learning (Radwan 2005). However, if implicit instruction entails that teachers offer appropriate support, guidance, and feedback (Koike and Pearson 2005;Manset-Williamson and Nelson 2005;Martínez-Flor and Fukuya 2005) or, as with the Nature of Science tradition, immersion in hands-on activities from which meaningful inferences might emerge (Clough 2006), then teachers did not engage in implicit instruction as typically understood.…”

The Minnesota Case Study Collection: New Historical Inquiry Case Studies for Nature of Science Education

“…Resources should draw on real science and scientific practice, whether from historical case studies (Conant 1947;Solomon et al 1992;Irwin 2000), contemporary case studies (Wellington 1991;Dimopoulos and Koulaidis 2003;Wong et al 2008), a student's own investigative experience, or all combined (Osborne et al 2003). Decontextualized ''black box'' activities, like mock forensics, while not wholly unhelpful, have limited effectiveness (Clough 2006). Indeed, given that an ultimate aim is typically 'scientific literacy', the classroom will contextualize science in social, political, economic and cultural, as well as experimental and theoretical, settings.…”