A Microworld-Based Approach to Science Education

Our objectives in this project1 were to reconceptualize what it means to understand physics and to improve how it is taught. To achieve these objectives, we created an experimental curriculum in which students’ learning centers around interacting with computer microworlds (i.e., interactive simulations), and where the focus is as much on learning about the form and evolution of scientific knowledge as it is on the subject matter (which is Newton’s laws of motion). We conducted experimental trials of this curriculum with regular sixth grade students (i.e., 11 and 12 year olds) and regular sixth grade teachers. When we evaluated its effectiveness, we found that the sixth grade students taught with this approach did better on a set of classic force and motion problems than did a group of high school physics students taught using traditional methods.

[1]  Dorothea P. Simon,et al.  Expert and Novice Performance in Solving Physics Problems , 1980, Science.

[2]  S. Carey.  Cognitive science and science education. , 1986 .

[3]  L. Resnick,et al.  Mathematics and Science Learning: A New Conception , 1983, Science.

[4]  A. diSessa.  Toward an Epistemology of Physics , 1993 .

[5]  Allan Collins,et al.  THE COMPUTER AS A TOOL FOR LEARNING THROUGH REFLECTION , 1986 .

[6]  Heinz Mandl,et al.  Learning Issues for Intelligent Tutoring Systems , 1988, Cognitive Science.

[7]  P. Johnson-Laird.  Mental models , 1989 .

[8]  John J. Clement,et al.  A conceptual model discussed by Galileo and used intuitively by physics students , 1983 .

[9]  Paul J. Feltovich,et al.  Categorization and Representation of Physics Problems by Experts and Novices , 1981, Cogn. Sci..

[10]  Susan E. Newman,et al.  Cognitive Apprenticeship: Teaching the Craft of Reading, Writing, and Mathematics. Technical Report No. 403. , 1987 .

[11]  P. Ramsden.  Improving Learning: New Perspectives , 1988 .

[12]  A. Caramazza,et al.  Naive beliefs in “sophisticated” subjects: misconceptions about trajectories of objects , 1981, Cognition.

[13]  L. Viennot.  Spontaneous Reasoning in Elementary Dynamics. , 1979 .

[14]  Andrea A. diSessa,et al.  Unlearning Aristotelian Physics: A Study of Knowledge-Based Learning , 1982, Cogn. Sci..

[15]  Mary Budd Rowe.  Education in the 80's: Science. , 1982 .

[16]  J. Clement.  Students’ preconceptions in introductory mechanics , 1982 .

[17]  L. McDermott.  Research on conceptual understanding in mechanics , 1984 .

[18]  L. McDermott,et al.  Investigation of student understanding of the concept of acceleration in one dimension , 1981 .

[19]  B. White.  ThinkerTools: Causal Models, Conceptual Change, and Science Education , 1993 .

[20]  A. Caramazza,et al.  Curvilinear motion in the absence of external forces: naive beliefs about the motion of objects. , 1980, Science.

[21]  Barbara Y. White,et al.  Causal Model Progressions as a Foundation for Intelligent Learning Environments , 1990, Artif. Intell..

[22]  Ann L. Brown,et al.  Reciprocal Teaching of Comprehension-Fostering and Comprehension-Monitoring Activities , 1984 .

[23]  Barbara Y. White,et al.  Sources of Difficulty in Understanding Newtonian Dynamics , 1983, Cogn. Sci..