Case Study of Model Evolution in Electricity: Learning from Both Observations and Analogies

This chapter focuses on data from a tutoring case study in high school level instruction on electric circuits. A model evolution approach to instruction is described that works within a cycle of model generation, evaluation, and revision. Case studies of transcripts from the lessons allow one to develop diagrammatic representations of the learning and teaching processes involved. The data base for this study is a set of tutoring interviews with a student, who we shall call Susan, who was 16 years old and who had completed her junior year in high school. Her teachers characterized her as having above average but not highest level ability in science. Susan had taken a course in chemistry but had not yet taken a course in physics. The instructional techniques included the use of both analogies and observations of real circuits constructed by the student and the teacher. The diagrams map the interplay between these instructional modes, and their effects on the student’s evolving model. They also illustrate important differences between source analogies and target models. Diagrams of learning processes at this scale are rarely mapped out carefully on the basis of learning theory. If such general mapping tools can be developed it should help us develop more detailed models of conceptual change. Additionally, having visual and verbal languages for these planning domains