ThinkerTools: Causal Models, Conceptual Change, and Science Education

Many cognitive and educational theorists believe that a prerequisite to learning physics is the attainment of the Piagetian developmental stage formal operational thinking. According to this view, attempts to teach children about the content and form of physical theories are doomed to failure. We argue that this is not the case. Children can learn basic physical concepts and models, given appropriately designed instruction. Furthermore, physical theories are a good domain for teaching children about the nature of scientific knowledge: its form, its evolution, and its application. This article describes an approach that enables sixth graders (i.e., 11- and 12-year-olds) to develop a conceptual model that embodies the principles underlying Newtonian mechanics, and to apply their model in making predictions, solving problems, and generating explanations. The students' learning centers around problem solving and experimentation with a series of computer microworlds (i.e., a set of interactive simulations and ...

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