The necessity of each phase of the learning cycle in teaching high school physics

The learning cycle is a method of teaching—it is also a curriculum organization principle and is derived directly from the mental functioning model invented by Piaget. Although Jean Piaget contributed to the formation of the learning cycle (Piaget, 1973), its present structure has to be attributed to Dr. Robert Karplus and the persons who developed the materials of the Science Curriculum Improvement Study (SCIS). It was through the SCIS activities that many of us learned how to develop curricula and teach with the learning cycle. The learning cycle is built upon the premise that three distinct phases are necessary in developing understanding of a concept, that those phases have a definite sequence, and each phase has a definite structure or form. The research done in testing the form variable has already been reported in this journal (Renner, Abraham, & Birnie, 1985). This report explores whether or not each learning-cycle phase is necessary in learning a concept.     

A Piagetian-Based Programme for Learning “Elements and Symbols”

Piaget's learning theory on cognitive development has had considerable impact on science education (Piaget, 1964; Inhelder and Piaget, 1958; Craig, 1972). The theory classifies cognitive learning into four successive stages: (a) sensory-motor, (b) pre-operational, (c) operational, and (d) formal. Various programmes and instructional strategies have been developed based on the theory (Batt, 1980; Karplus, 1977; Renner and Stafford, 1979; Ryan, et al., 1980; Herron, 1978; Good et al; 1978). An application of this theory for teaching and learning scientific concepts is the Piagetian learning cycle (Karplus, 1977) which is of growing interest among science educators. This article intends to introduce briefly the learning cycle in general and suggest a learning cycle for teaching a topic in chemistry: “Elements and Symbols”.     

Comparing variation theory with Piaget’s theory of cognitive development: more similarities than differences?

ABSTRACT

Lo’s variation theory is a learning and teaching theory based on Marton’s phenomenographic approach and is one of the most important backbones of learning studies. The proponents of variation theory demarcate their approach from constructivist learning approaches, stressing constructivism as philosophical framework, but not as learning theory. At the same time, the phenomenographic approach emphasizes the importance of Piaget’s work about the cognitive development, which should be considered when talking about learning and teaching. We argue that – from a theoretical point of view – Piaget’s theory of how cognitive schemata are developed and how variation theory proposes that learning can be fostered entails many similarities which are not apparent at first glance. We demonstrate the similarities and differences using a teaching example from an English as second language classroom and show the implications for practical instructional work. Finally, we discuss concrete suggestions how variation theory could benefit even more from Piaget’s theory.     

Reframing the Debate About the Relationship Between Learning and Development: An Effort to Resolve Dilemmas and Reestablish Dialogue in a Fractured Field

The field of early childhood education (ECE) is currently unable to reach consensus on the extent to which ECE should be based on child development. One manifestation of this situation is the dilemma that early educators purportedly face between teaching the whole child and the curriculum, between developmentally appropriate practice (DAP) and standards. The source of this dilemma is attributed to a one-dimensional understanding of children’s development in which development is privileged over learning. Addressing this dilemma begins by discussing a theoretical difference between Piaget and Vygotsky: for Piaget, development drives learning; for Vygotsky, learning drives development. This seemingly dichotomous difference is reframed, however, by the insight that Piaget and Vygotsky focused on different types of development: Piaget studied universals (e.g., object permanence); Vygotsky studied nonuniversals (e.g., cultural tools often learned in schools). Their dispute stems, therefore, from this factor: development drives learning in nonuniversal developmental sequences, but learning drives development in universal sequences. Teachers who adopt a multi-dimensional developmental framework—a framework that makes visible how the relationship between learning and development may vary within universal versus nonuniversal developmental sequences—may be better prepared to (1) make informed decisions about the extent to which they should guide children’s activities and (2) avoid the DAP versus standards dilemma. The most recent iteration of DAP moved toward adopting a multi-dimensional developmental framework when it encouraged teachers to base instructional judgments on the extent to which children’s emerging capacities will likely require greater versus lesser degrees of adult guidance, structure, and support.     

LEARNING BY DOING – PIAGETS KONSTRUKTIVISTISCHE LERNTHEORIE UND IHRE KONSEQUENZEN FÜR DIE PÄDAGOGISCHE PRAXIS

Piaget's theory of genetic recognition has a number of pedagogical implications. With the swing from structuralism to constructivism, Piaget created one of the first constructivist learning theories around the middle of this century. After this has been briefly presented, its relationship to present-day teaching and learning research, pedagogical practice and other forms of constructivism is examined critically. Although Piaget's theory does not embrace all forms of human learning, it does contain some significant pointers for pedagogical practice. An appropriate practical application of Piaget's learning theory would be to teach by encouraging spontaneous activity and the interests of the pupils.     

“At Sea”: Reversibility in Teaching and Learning

An equal-armed balance at equilibrium—the bar is horizontal—tips into disequilibrium upon displacing a weight. Equilibrium is restored by reversing that move—putting the weight back where it was, or doing the same on the other side. Piaget adopted the idea of equilibration to describe how the intellect, in relating to the world, develops. Equilibrium arises as: our mind adjusts its structures in response to the outer world (accommodation), so our internalized views can take in this outer world (assimilation). That is the process Piaget calls equilibration. Upon undergoing disequilibrium, the intellect employs these equilibrating moves, changing its structures in the process. When the intellect resolves a disturbing problem no matter how it is encountered, the intellect tries to reverse the disturbing feature: how did the familiar situation get to this disturbing one; how might that change be reversed? These equilibrating processes are encouraged as means of teaching and learning in this paper’s math and science examples. The clinical interviewing methodology of Piaget and Inhelder, as adapted by Eleanor Duckworth in the research pedagogy of clinical exploration in the classroom, provides the neutral, safe conditions requisite for these learners and teachers in undergoing disequilibrium, struggling with uncertainty, and constructing new understandings. In beginning to teach through exploration, the author and an undergraduate experimented with free fall motion. Experiencing disequilibrium, the student reconstructed her understanding of time as concurrently continuous and divisible. Seeking to enact methods of Piaget and Duckworth while engaging her, the teacher also experienced disequilibrium.     

语文自主学习探微

语文自主学习是在老师指导下,以学生自主探究为主要学习行为,自主完成语文学习任务,自主提升语文学习能力的语文实践活动。哈贝马斯的“交往理论”和源自皮亚杰的“建构主义”理论为其提供了有力的理论支持。实现语文自主学习关键要转变观念,解放思想;强化学生参与获得知识的过程;探索与建构语文自主学习教育、教学体系等。语文自主学习是学习型社会语文基础教育实现跨越式发展的必然要求。     

建构主义心理发展观与开放学习者认知发展

本文依据开放教育与开放学习者心理发展的依存关系,从皮亚杰的建构主义发展理论入手,分析了这种理论对开放学习者在学习风格、学习方式、学习动机等方面的影响,并就开放学习者如何凭借这种理论调节自己的学习行为、拓展自己的学习时空、设计学习程序等作了深入的探究。     

皮亚杰认知发展理论对《计算机程序设计》课程教学的启示

皮亚杰认知发展理论体系对儿童心理发展和教育研究产生了巨大的影响,对教学活动有很好的指导作用。根据皮亚杰的理论,《计算机程序设计》课程教学应注意以下几点：根据学生需要设置课程,激发学习动机;顺应学生的认知发展情况;教学内容安排应螺旋上升;重视实践活动;通过分析学生的学习过程发现问题;鼓励学生采用小组协作方式学习。     

Towards a dialogic theory of how children learn to think

This paper develops a dialogic theory of thinking and of learning to think that has implications for education. The theory is offered as a contrast to theories that are based on both Piaget and Vygotsky. The paper proceeds by unpacking and interweaving three key concepts: dialogue, thinking and learning in order to argue that learning to think can be understood as a shift in self-identification towards becoming dialogue. This theory is then applied to the context of primary classrooms through the analysis of three short episodes of interaction. These analyses offer evidence that a dialogic theory of learning to think can offer new and valuable insights into classroom interaction with the potential to inform pedagogy.     

“Don't Tell Me,I'll Find Out” Robert Karplus—A Science Education Pioneer

Robert Karplus (1927–90), who began his career as a brilliant theoretical physicist, switched to science education in the early 1960s. He made many substantial contributions to this field in addition to developing a complete K–6 hands-on science curriculum. Karplus provided his curriculum with a sound epistemological foundation, based on the work of Piaget. He developed an effective classroom teaching strategy, the learning cycle. He and his team used a scientific approach to curriculum development. They focused on teacher development. Karplus was committed to science for ALL students. Through science activities he sought to share the joy of discovery. A recent book collects some of his important papers and enables you to examine his work for yourself and see what you discover.     

Conflicting views on the importance of emotion to human development and growth: Piaget and Whitehead

In this paper I analyse the concept of emotion on Jean Piaget's theory of development and Alfred North Whitehead's theory of growth. For Piaget, emotion is the motivating force of action emanating from outside the individual in the form of sensations emitted by objects. His view is rooted in the Newtonian conception of a universe comprised of isolated objects requiring an emotive force to initiate a series of mechanistic interactions between objects. Piaget reduces all conscious human experience to a cognitive formulation of these causal relations. His abstract concept of emotion as force fails to explain the relationship between bodily feelings, emotions, and higher forms of consciousness in human beings. Conversely, Whitehead explains that emotions are the crucial mediating factors between the welter of awareness of these feelings in higher organisms. His view is consistent with the new physics and its emphasis on indeterminacy, energy, and the organic relationship among events. Whitehead's concrete concept of emotion gives insight into the experience of bodily feelings and their relationship to the growth and learning of human beings. The implications of these conflicting views of emotion for psychology and education are clear. Psychologists must avoid the reductionist tendencies illustrated in Piaget's theory if they hope to understand the subtleties of human experience. Failing to do this will lead them to a concept of human growth and learning in which ideas have no internal relationship with the experience of the knower. Such a conception distorts our understanding of human beings and ignores the joy of knowing.     

The Piagetian <Emphasis Type="Italic">Schème</Emphasis>: a Framework to Study Professional Learning Through Conceptualization

Different theories of learning have been used in vocational education studies and Piaget is a common source of reference. Our intent is to present a specific and original way in which the Piagetian theory of schèmes has been developed since the 1990s in studies called “vocational didactics”. Developed in French-speaking countries and mostly unknown to an international audience, this approach offers a specific use of Jean Piaget’s theory of learning, which has been applied to adult learning and vocational education. We will first develop the theoretical foundation of the theory of schèmes as developed by Vergnaud (1989, Recherches en didactique des mathématiques, 10(2–3), 133–170, 1990, 1996, 2001) and others after Piaget (1947). Then, we will present the methodological perspective of this approach. We will finally present significant research results to illustrate outcomes and practical implications for vocational training.     

库伯经验学习理论视域下的成人学习模式研究

库伯的经验学习模式是在杜威、勒温、皮亚杰思想理论的基础上发展起来的。库伯将经验学习模式描述为四个阶段:(1)具体经验;(2)反思与观察;(3)抽象概念化;(4)积极实践。库伯认为学习者应在这四个阶段中往复循环,从而产生不断上升的复杂体的学习螺旋。由于成年学习者的经验更加丰富,因此库伯的经验学习环模式更加适用于成年学习者。在成人经验学习的四个阶段中,教师的工作是引导成年学习者在每个水平上发展、拓展他们的话题。     

SOLO模型的建构及其对科学教育的启示

SOLO模型是对观察到的学习结果进行分类的理论框架,包括思维方式和复杂性水平两个关键特征。在新皮亚杰理论基础上,SOLO模型将皮亚杰认识发展理论的认识主体扩展为存在差异性的学生个体,同时考虑学生学习的质变和量变,SOLO模型对于科学课程目标设置以及教学评价具有重要的启示。     

Children's learning about the balance scale

We present a detailed look at children's learning about the balance scale. In our study, as children explored the balance scale, they acquired and built on special-case and context-specific knowledge. Before making general and context-independent observations, they made more local observations.We contrast our findings with two previous analyses of children's knowledge [Inhelder and Piaget, 1958; Siegler, 1978] about the balance scale in light of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and its acquisition. Educational implications of all three analyses are considered.     

库伯经验学习理论及其对成人教师专业发展的启示

在杜威的经验学习模式、皮亚杰的学习认知发展模式和勒温的行动研究实验训练模式基础上,库伯提出经验学习理论。库伯的经验学习理论探讨了经验学习的定义、特征和模式,为成人学习者的经验学习提供了有力指导,同时也为成人教师的专业发展提供了重要的启示,即成人教师的专业发展是持续不断的过程,注重批判性反思观念,营造专业发展氛围,增强专业发展意识,立足真实生活世界。     

皮亚杰与建构主义

建构主义并非完全起源于皮亚杰的结构主义,而且皮亚杰的结构主义并非就是建构主义。对皮亚杰的建构主义理解,目前国内局限于个体认知心理领域,而事实上它是一个认识论问题。     

Information processing psychology: A promising paradigm for research in science teaching

Three research paradigms, those of Ausubel, Gagné and Piaget, have received a great deal of attention in the literature of science education. In this article a fourth paradigm is presented—an information processing psychology paradigm. The article is composed of two sections. The first section describes a model of memory developed by information processing psychologists. The second section describes how such a model could be used to guide science education research on learning and problem solving.