Critical physics agency: further unraveling the intersections of subject matter knowledge, learning, and taking action

In this rejoinder to Bryan Brown and John Reveles, we highlight the facts that (a) sociocultural theories of learning do not go far enough because they fail to address a number of issues and (b) we require concepts such as power and positionality to understand science learning.

A research framework for creative and imitative reasoning

This conceptual research framework addresses the problem of rote learning by characterising key aspects of the dominating imitative reasoning and the lack of creative mathematical reasoning found in empirical data. By relating reasoning to thinking processes, student competencies, and the learning milieu it explains origins and consequences of different reasoning types.

Hands-on mathematics: two cases from ancient Chinese mathematics

In modern mathematical teaching, it has become increasingly emphasized that mathematical knowledge should be taught by problem-solving, hands-on activities, and interactive learning experiences. Comparing the ideas of modern mathematical education with the development of ancient Chinese mathematics, we find that the history of mathematics in ancient China is an abundant resource for materials to demonstrate mathematics by hands-on manipulation. In this article I shall present two cases that embody this idea of a hands-on approach in ancient Chinese mathematics, at the same time offering an opportunity to show how to utilize materials from the history of Chinese math in modern mathematical education.

The completeness property of the set of real numbers in the transition from calculus to analysis

This paper focuses on teaching and learning the set of real numbers R and its completeness property at the university level. It studies, in particular, the opportunities for understanding this property that students are offered in four undergraduate correlative courses in Calculus and Analysis. The theoretical framework used in the study draws on concepts developed in the Anthropological Theory of Didactics, especially the notions of praxeology and mathematical organization. The paper shows different expectations concerning the same notion (R and its completeness) through different school levels, and intends to bring up some reflections about the transition from Calculus to Analysis.

Bodily experience and mathematical conceptions: from classical views to a phenomenological reconceptualization

Mathematical concepts and conceptions have been theorized as abstractions from—and therefore transcending—bodily and embodied experience. In this contribution, we re-theorize mathematical conceptions by building on recent philosophical work in dialectical phenomenology. Accordingly, a conception exists only in, through, and as of the experiences that the individual realizes it. To exemplify our reconceptualization of mathematical conceptions, we draw on an episode from a study in a second-grade classroom where the students learned about three-dimensional geometrical objects.

Using Large-scale Assessment Datasets for Research in Science and Mathematics Education: Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

Large-scale assessments of student achievement provide a window into the broadly defined concepts of literacy and generate information about levels and types of student achievement in relation to some of the correlates of learning, such as student background, attitudes, and perceptions, and perhaps school and home characteristics. This paper provides an overview and outlines potential research opportunities of one such assessment—the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). In order to provide examples of the work that can be accomplished with these data, we describe and discuss the results generated from PISA 2000 and PISA 2003 in terms of international comparisons of achievement and the models of relational patterns of student, home, and school characteristics. We provide insight from the recent pilot testing conducted in Taiwan for PISA 2006, which has a focus on scientific literacy. This is followed by a discussion of the implications and potentials of the 2000 and 2003 datasets to facilitate research on scientific and mathematical literacy. The paper concludes with a look ahead to PISA 2006 and what researchers should be attending to in the research reports generated from the OECD and the research interests that they could follow given access to the datasets generated.

Socio-emotional orientations and teacher change

In this article we consider how elementary education students’ views of mathematics changed during their mathematics methods course. We focus on four female students: two started the course with mainly positive views of mathematics and a task orientation, two with negative views of the subject and an ego-defensive orientation. The biggest change observed was that the trainees’ views of teaching and learning mathematics became more positive. Moreover, what had been an ego-defensive orientation changed towards a social-dependence orientation. The crucial facilitators of change seemed to be (1) handling of and reflection on one’s experiences of learning and teaching mathematics, (2) exploring content with concrete materials, and (3) collaboration with a partner or working as a tutor of mathematics.

Movement expressiveness, solidarity and the (re)shaping of African American students’ scientific identities

Science educators have yet to identify ways to enable inner city African American high school students to experience success in science. In this paper, we argue that understanding the ways in which cultural practices from fields outside of school mediate what happens inside classrooms and contribute to the learning of students is crucial to addressing current disparities in science performance. Specifically, we explore the significance of movement expressiveness dispositions to the lives and the learning of economically disadvantaged African American youth. These particular dispositions have been repeatedly observed in our research, and they can be important resources for the creation of individual emotional energy, collective solidarity, and heightened engagement in learning activities since they provide resources for the (re)shaping of identity. Thus movement expressiveness dispositions hold potential for transforming the teaching and learning of these students.

A cultural-historical reading of “Culturally Sensitive Schooling”: thinking beyond a constructivist view of science learning

“Culturally-Sensitive Schooling” as proposed by Brayboy and Castagno offers an important way of thinking about the relations between formal and informal science learning and between Western and Indigenous science. The constructivist framework adopted by Brayboy and Castagno in their discussions is consistent with the theoretical approach traditionally used by many researchers and scholars interested in science learning. In this article I explore the basic concepts introduced in their paper, but use a different theoretical lens for explicating concept formation. Through a cultural-historical reading of “Culturally Sensitive Schooling,” different insights can be gained about the relations between everyday informal learning and schooled learning in science. I argue that dialectical logic is more productive for re-theorising science teaching and learning in culturally diverse communities.

Assessing learning,quality and engagement in learning objects: the Learning Object Evaluation Scale for Students (LOES-S)

Learning objects are interactive web-based tools that support the learning of specific concepts by enhancing, amplifying, and/or guiding the cognitive processes of learners. Research on the impact, effectiveness, and usefulness of learning objects is limited, partially because comprehensive, theoretically based, reliable, and valid evaluation tools are scarce, particularly in the K-12 environment. The purpose of the following study was to investigate a Learning Object Evaluation Scale for Students (LOES-S) based on three key constructs gleaned from 10 years of learning object research: learning, quality or instructional design, and engagement. Tested on over 1100 middle and secondary school students, the data generated using the LOES-S showed acceptable internal reliability, face validity, construct validity, convergent validity and predictive validity.

Information comparisons in example-based hypermedia environments: supporting learners with processing prompts and an interactive comparison tool

Global comparisons of learning from hypertext/hypermedia and traditional presentation formats like text have yet failed to show major advantages concerning the effectiveness of hypermedia learning. Thus, it is proposed in the current paper to evaluate hypermedia environments more specifically with regard to their potential to implement and support well-defined learning approaches. According to this view, an effective hypermedia design needs to be based on thorough cognitive task analyses with regard to structures, processes, and resources that are required to benefit from a specific learning approach. This claim is illustrated by two experiments in which we explored the instructional potential of hypermedia environments for improving schema acquisition from worked-out examples. A cognitive task analysis was used to identify specific types of information comparisons that are crucial for successful schema induction and that might be effectively supported by suitably designed hypermedia environments. The experiments investigated two methods for enhancing comparison processes in hypermedia-assisted learning from worked-out examples, namely, elaboration prompts and an interactive comparison tool. Both methods improved performance for near-transfer problems. Ways of extending this task-analytical approach to facilitating far transfer are also discussed.

Understanding Learning Culturally: Overcoming the Dualism Between Social and Individual Views of Learning

This paper identifies limitations within the current literature on understanding learning. Overcoming these limitations entails replacing dualist views of learning as either individual or social, by using a theory of learning cultures and a cultural theory of learning, which articulate with each other. To do this, we argue that it is possible and indeed necessary to combine major elements of participatory or situated views of learning with elements of Deweyan embodied construction. Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and field are used to achieve this purpose, together with the use of ‘becoming’ as a metaphor to help understand learning more holistically. This theorizing has a predominantly heuristic purpose, and we argue that it enables researchers to better explain data. We also suggest that a cultural approach of the sort proposed here leads toward the asking of better questions about learning and its improvement and has high practical significance.

Urban Immigrant Students: How Transnationalism Shapes Their World Learning

This article examines the lives of three transnational second-generation immigrant Latinas who reside in urban centers in California and maintain close ties to Mexico. Drawing from a participatory research and ethnographic study, I provide evidence of the out-of-school learning that they experience and how this shapes their notions of global citizenship. Although schools have begun to slowly recognize transnational immigrant students, many urban educators whose cities are palpably transformed by immigrants have not fully connected the promise of such a global lifestyle and its potential for instruction in the classroom.

The importance of socio-cultural context for understanding students’ meaning making in the study of genetics

In this rejoinder to Ann Kindfield and Grady Venville’s comments on our article “Reconsidering conceptual change from a socio-cultural perspective: Analyzing students’ meaning making in genetics in collaborative learning activities,” we elaborate on some of the critical issues they raise. Their comments make apparent some of the crucial differences between a socio-cultural and a socio-cognitive approach towards conceptual change. We have selected some issues that are addressed, either implicitly or explicitly, in their comments. The main issues discussed are talk and interaction as data, the significance of context in interaction studies, the feasibility of generic claims in small-scale interaction studies, and the difference between studying students’ understanding of science concepts as opposed to studying the construction of meaning.

Intuitive nonexamples: the case of triangles

In this paper we examine the possibility of differentiating between two types of nonexamples. The first type, intuitive nonexamples, consists of nonexamples which are intuitively accepted as such. That is, children immediately identify them as nonexamples. The second type, non-intuitive nonexamples, consists of nonexamples that bear a significant similarity to valid examples of the concept, and consequently are more often mistakenly identified as examples. We describe and discuss these notions and present a study regarding kindergarten children’s grasp of nonexamples of triangles.

Understanding conceptual change: connecting and questioning

We engage in a metalogue based on eight papers in this issue of Cultural Studies of Science Education that review the state of conceptual change research and its possible affect on the teaching and learning of science. Our discussion addresses three aspects of conceptual change research: theoretical, methodological, and practical, as we discuss conceptual change research in light of our experiences as science educators. Finally, we examine the implications of conceptual change research for the teachers and students with whom we work.

Exam Scams and Classroom Flimflams: Urban Legends as an Alternative Lens for Viewing the College Classroom Experience

Campus-based urban legends have the potential to convey and construct student culture in higher education. Basic qualitative and humanistic research methods were used to collect, analyze, and interpret legends related to the academic experience of collegiate life.