What changes in conceptual change?

This paper has two aims. First, it reviews literature about conceptual change and about the study of concepts more broadly. The principal claim is that much prior work has suffered from inexplicitness and imprecision in terms of what constitutes a concept. Second, we introduce a theory of one particular type of concept. A coordination class is a systematic collection of strategies for reading a certain type of information out from the world. We identify both structural components and performance properties of coordination classes. Using this theory, we analyse protocol data from a student with respect to the difficult concept of force in Newtonian mechanics.     

Conceptual Problems in the Foundations of Mechanics

There has been much research on principles and fundamental concepts of mechanics. Problems concerning the law of inertia, the concepts of force, fictitious force, weight, mass and the distinction between inertial and gravitational mass are addressed in the first part of the present paper. It is argued in the second that the law of inertia is the source of these problems. Consequences drawn from the law explain the metaphysical concept of force, the problematic concept of fictitious force, the nominal definition of weight and the difficulty with defining mass operationally. The core of this connection between the law and these consequences lies in the fact that acceleration is a sufficient condition for force. The experimental basis of the law in the course of its history shows, however, that the law presupposes acceleration necessarily whereas acceleration does not presuppose the law. Therefore, there is no inconvenience in taking acceleration independently of the law. This is enough to bypass those problems. Taking into account how force is measured by force meters and how mass is basically determined, by comparison with the standard mass, a minimal meaning for both concepts of force and mass is established. All this converges with several solutions proposed in the course of history and increases the communicability of mechanics, as outlined in the final part of this paper.     

Assessment and the co-regulation of learning in the classroom

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the processes of regulation of student learning that are associated with formative assessment in the classroom. It discusses the concept of co-regulation and presents a model of co-regulation developed in a situated perspective on classroom learning. This model conceptualises co-regulated learning as resulting from the joint influence of student self-regulation and of sources of regulation in the learning environment: namely, the structure of the teaching/learning situation, the teacher’s interventions and interactions with students, the interactions between students, and the tools used for instruction and for assessment. Examples of research showing how co-regulation functions are discussed, in particular students’ use of tools for self-assessment and peer assessment, and the role of teacher–student interactions that encourage active student participation in formative assessment.     

Spontaneous Reasoning in Elementary Dynamics

Summaries

English

The scope of this study was to explore and analyse spontaneous reasoning of students in elementary dynamics, from the last year at secondary school to the third year at University.

A set of investigations involving several hundred students (mainly French, but also British and Belgian) showed surprising rates of wrong, or right, answers, which are very stable from one sample of students to another. It seems difficult to attribute these results solely to school learning. But they can be reasonably well accounted for if we assume a spontaneous explanatory system, relatively unaffected by school learning.

In particular, students seem to use in their reasoning two different notions of dynamics, usually designated by the same word: ‘force’. To detect which of these two notions has, in fact, been used, one must look at their properties: one of these ‘forces’ is associated with the velocity of a motion whilst the other one is associated with its acceleration. Likewise, the part played by energy in these two notions is distinctly different.

It is possible to set up, and roughly classify, the types of questions which give rise to each notion in spontaneous reasoning. This model, where inertial forces are also included, makes it possible, with a minimum of hypothesis, to account for answers on a wide range of topics, such as: free fall, oscillating systems, ‘accelerated’ frames of references, third law of dynamics.

More generally: when confronted with a physical system, students may first consider the system as it is, with its geometrical and physical characteristics at time t, or consider mainly the evolution of the system, and look for a causal explanation. While compatible in Newtonian formalism, these viewpoints lead students more often to right answers in the first case than in the second one, the explanation being then often confused with quasi‐animistic arguments, and loosely located in time.

Some teaching consequences can be drawn from these investigations. Some of them, of a relatively technical nature, follow more or less directly from the wrong answers reported here. But the most important one concerns the very principle of these investigations: they provide an opportunity for the students involved to make an extremely useful self‐analysis and to learn to distinguish between learned formalism and spontaneous reasoning and, consequently, to master both of them somewhat better.     

Neoliberalism and the discursive construction of ‘creativity’

ABSTRACT

This paper resists normative definitions of ‘creativity’ to argue that the concept is constructed by neoliberal discourses in education policy. The analysis is firstly centred on the Australian context, and this is further informed and complimented by a global perspective. Focusing on two pivotal policies, The Melbourne Declaration of Educational Goals for Young Australians and PISA 2012 Results: Creative Problem Solving, the paper argues that universal versions of creativity, such as those that align the concept with problem-solving or design endeavour, are a product of market logic. Using Foucault’s concept of homo economius, it traces how creativity is subsumed into discourses of workplace readiness and rapidly changing environments, and proceeds to identify how select and partial discourses of the concept, such as creativity as instrumental and determinable are supported, while there is a silence around alternative conceptualisations. The paper concludes with a discussion on how the discursive positioning of creativity by neoliberal themes and formations brings about real effects: certain work practices are valued more than others and particular student and teacher subjectivities are endorsed or demoted ‘in the name of’ creativity.     

Questioning the white body: on applying a phenomenological mode of inquiry to whiteness studies in education

Abstract

The racialized body is of obvious, or at least implicit, concern for the qualitative study of Whiteness in education. Whiteness, as an organizing principle that conditions normative ways of being in society, is predicated upon the raced body as a social signifier. It is curious then, that the body remains under-examined and not treated as a serious analytic. How bodies interact in real time—how educational spaces are brought to life—are left to the analytical wayside in favor of reflective approaches. This paper questions prominent approaches to studying Whiteness in education, and subsequently proposes expanding the methodological repertoire to encompass a phenomenology of racial embodiment as a way to make-meaning of the subtle interactions between bodies unfolding in unique educational places.     

Drawing relationally for an ethnography of practice

ABSTRACT

Education ethnographies show that observing bodies, objects and settings can illuminate previously hidden learning practices but the relational characteristics of these practices presents methodological challenges for conventional qualitative analyses. Using an example from an ethnographic study of everyday learning, I show how methods from art (specifically researcher-created drawings) can address some of these challenges. I use the concept of ‘epistemic objects’ to theorise drawings as analysis, and to show that rather than being a process of deconstruction, this analysis is constantly bringing knowledge into being. With original interdisciplinary insights from art/social science, this article problematises art in sociomaterial research and offers direction for relational analyses.     

Alternative conceptions in Galilean relativity: inertial and non‐inertial observers

This concluding part of a study on Galilean relativity focuses on students’ notions with regard to the inertial and non‐inertial character of frames of reference. (See Panse et al. 1994, Ramadas et al. 1996). The results show that students: adopt kinematic criteria for deciding the inertial or non‐inertial character of frames; consider this character to be a ‘relative’ property of two frames rather than an intrinsic property of a given frame; and equate pseudo‐forces to ‘imaginary’ forces. Centrifugal force is associated with rotating objects rather than with rotating frames; the latter are localized by the finite extension of their associated objects. Anthropomorphic criteria are invoked to judge the existence of centrifugal force, which is regarded as a reaction (in the sense of Newton's third law) to the centripetal force on a rotating object.     

The effectiveness of problem-based learning on teaching the first law of thermodynamics

Background: Problem-based learning (PBL) is a teaching approach working in cooperation with self-learning and involving research to solve real problems. The first law of thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but that energy is conserved. Students had difficulty learning or misconceptions about this law. This study is related to the teaching of the first law of thermodynamics within a PBL environment.

Purpose: This study examined the effectiveness of PBL on candidate science teachers’ understanding of the first law of thermodynamics and their science process skills. This study also examined their opinions about PBL.

Sample: The sample consists of 48 third-grade university students from the Department of Science Education in one of the public universities in Turkey.

Design and methods: A one-group pretest–posttest experimental design was used. Data collection tools included the Achievement Test, Science Process Skill Test, Constructivist Learning Environment Survey and an interview with open-ended questions. Paired samples t-test was conducted to examine differences in pre/post tests.

Results: The PBL approach has a positive effect on the students’ learning abilities and science process skills. The students thought that the PBL environment supports effective and permanent learning, and self-learning planning skills. On the other hand, some students think that the limited time and unfamiliarity of the approach impede learning.

Conclusions: The PBL is an active learning approach supporting students in the process of learning. But there are still many practical disadvantages that could reduce the effectiveness of the PBL. To prevent the alienation of the students, simple PBL activities should be applied from the primary school level. In order to overcome time limitations, education researchers should examine short-term and effective PBL activities.     

International organisations and the construction of the learning active citizen: An analysis of adult learning policy documents from a Durkheimian perspective

Abstract

The article analyses how citizenship is conceptualised in policy documents of four key international organisations. The basic assumption is that public policy has not turned away from adult learning for active citizenship, but that there are rather new ways in which international governmental organisations conceptualise and in some cases seek to operationalise active citizenship in the context of their thinking on lifelong learning. We argue that the language of citizens and citizenship continues to be an important thread in the publications of these organisations. The theoretical framework of Emile Durkheim is referred to since his work helps to explore and address the changes. The analysis of Durkheim draws attention to the crucial role of intermediary bodies which serve as a restraint on both individuals and state.     

Concept Formation in Biology: The Concept ‘Growth’

Summaries

English

A concept is understood here as a logic core, which is surrounded by an associative framework, to which also the name of the concept belongs. The logic core is a pattern of properties of a class of things, which is invariant to individual objects of the class as well as to the observer. The pattern is determined by logic relations, which are constituents of the epistemic structure of the learner.

In this article an analysis of the situation concerning the concept ‘growth’ is carried out. The logic core of the concept is theoretically investigated by means of systems theory and is empirically tested by means of free definitions. The associative framework, however, is determined by means of free association tests.

It is shown that in the course of school education a marked shift takes place in the logic core as well as in the associative framework from a ‘growth in terms of geometric dimension’ towards a ‘growth in terms of particle numbers’.     

Revisiting the Analects for a modern reading of the Confucian dialogical spirit in education

Abstract

This study investigates the educational thought of Confucius with focus on the educational relationship in the Analects, which is a historical text that defines the foundations of Confucianism. The first part of the investigation examines Confucius’ concept of the educational relationship and how it is characterized with a dialogical spirit, which consists of worldly and secular human-orientedness, co-existentiality as a fundamental principle for educational practice, and dialogue to become an ideal ruler through self-discipline. The second stage of this study further examines the spirit of dialogue in the Analects with consideration of its historical–cultural context. Through this process, the study unravels the historical and cultural limitations of original Confucian educational thought for modern society and proposes a possible way to reengage Confucius’ educational value in today’s modern educational context.     

Genocide in the sculpture garden and talking back to settler colonialism

ABSTRACT

In this essay, I explore how Native American rhetoric of resistance exposes the settler colonial logics that constitute a hegemonic force in the greater social imaginary. Focusing on two sites—the Minneapolis Walker Arts Center’s Scaffold exhibit and The Landing, a historic settlers’ village located twenty miles from the Walker—I assess both how settler colonialism is enacted in these spaces and how Native American activism represents a talking back to settler colonialism. I argue that examining places as networked arguments reveals the ways in which they can speak to each other and unsettle dominant ideologies. To better understand the settler colonial logics that Native American resistance rhetoric seeks to unsettle, I advocate for critical examination of how scholars and activists are constituted by those very centering logics.     

Something old,something new,something borrowed,and something Froebel? The development of origami in early childhood education in Japan

ABSTRACT

This study examines how origami has been implemented, practised, and developed in the early childhood education of Japan over the past 140 years. Historically speaking, paper-folding has been part of Japanese symbolic art, craft culture, and religious ceremonial artefacts since paper and paper-folding techniques were first imported from China during the seventh century. By the eighteenth century, paper-folding provided a form of mass entertainment in Japanese society. During the 1870s, paper-folding was dramatically transformed into a pedagogical tool within Japanese kindergartens after Friedrich Froebel’s (1782–1852) kindergarten system and its curriculum was transferred to Japan from the West. “Papier-Falten” (paper-folding) comprised an element of Froebel’s Occupations – which was a series of handiwork activities – in his kindergarten curriculum, whereby various folding techniques and models were derived from European traditional paper-folding and introduced into a Japanese kindergarten curriculum that was associated with the concept of Froebel’s kindergarten. Particularly seen in early childhood education in Japan, what we now call origami developed as a new form of paper-folding. This gradually emerged through the marriage of Western (German) and Eastern (Japanese) paper-folding cultures. The study highlights the benefits and uniqueness of cultural transmission and transformation when developing origami in early childhood education in Japan.     

From both sides of the indigenous-settler hyphen in Aotearoa New Zealand

Iho/Abstract

The idea of the ‘intercultural hyphen’ is likened to a gap or bridge between ethnic groups, created from the ongoing intertwining of sociopolitical and intellectual histories. This ‘gap or bridge’ wording captures the paradoxical nature of the intercultural space, for which the ‘hyphen’ is a shorthand symbol or sign. There are options on either side to engage or disengage across the intercultural space represented by the hyphen—but how, and with what results? In Aotearoa New Zealand, tensions invoked by the indigenous-settler hyphen are worked through every day in a multitudinous range of real-world scenarios. The purpose of this article is to combine critical Māori readings with critical Pākehā readings to discuss the intercultural hyphen as a theoretical concept in education, showing how Māori and Kaupapa Māori benefit from this concept, and arguing for stronger engagement of critical Māori scholarship in the field of philosophy and theory of education.     

The Many Turnings of Agricultural Extension in Australia

Abstract

Purpose: This article outlines the development of extension as a discipline in Australia, its organization, and the ideological changes that have occurred from the second half of the nineteenth century through to the present.

Design/Methodology/Approach: It considers the evolution of extension across the different states of Australia from a national perspective and describes how the research development and extension (RD&E) complex has rotated through cycles of crises, highs, awakenings in thought and practice, and periods where achievements and institutions unravel.

Findings: Discussed is the tension between public and private sector extension, as well as the successes and failures of various paradigms. It considers the impacts of different agricultural policy on Australian agricultural RD&E across the decades. In particular it deals with the current ‘unravelling’ of the agricultural RD&E system in Australia, and tries to anticipate future demands on agricultural extension and how these services might be delivered into the future.

Practical Implications: The article challenges the reader to consider the discipline of extension as a subset of the greater society in which it exists. It provides an insight into how the agricultural research, development and extension capacity of a nation can be observed to ebb and flow over generations in accord with the rhythm of society.

Originality/Value: The article presents a perspective that has not been fully captured or understood until now.     

A Desperate Comedy: Hope and alienation in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot

Abstract

This article is both a personal response to Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and an examination of the concept within literature of making the strange familiar and making the familiar strange. It discusses the educative force and potential of Beckett’s strangers in a strange world by examining my own personal experiences with the play. At the same time the limitations of Beckett’s theatre are explored through the contrast with the work of Berthold Brecht, who sought to make the familiar strange as a method of political enquiry to facilitate the transformation of the capitalist state. Parallels are drawn between the possibilities of both theatre and education as tools for social transformation and change.