Teaching for Conceptual Change: Examples from Force and Motion.

This paper states and discusses general guidelines in teaching for conceptual change. Several important factors that seem to be necessary in meeting the guidelines in normal classrooms are considered. The factors relate to the teacher, student, and the classroom climate. The guidelines are illustrated using examples drawn from a fifth-grade classroom of 13 students at a small parochial elementary school where conceptual change teaching is practiced. The guidelines in teaching for conceptual change are as follows: (1) students' ideas need to be an integral part of classroom discourse; (2) the status of ideas needs to be discussed and negotiated; (3) the justification for ideas needs to be an explicit component of the curriculum; and (4) the discourse of the classroom needs to be explicitly metacognitive. Each guideline is discussed with specific instructional applications provided. Questions that remain unanswered after exploring the research literature and some general limitations of the guidelines are examined. (DDR) ******************************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ********************************************************************************