Talk:Cognition and Instruction/Learning Science and Conceptual Change

As a group, we chose to write the Learning Science and Conceptual Change chapter of the Cognition and Instruction Wikibook because we are not just simply interested in the subject, but we also think that science is one of the essential subjects in education. We have divided our chapter into 6 main sections which we thought were important to discuss, and the majority of them are further divided into sub-sections. This chapter will look at teaching science to those with naïve beliefs and preconception, will include different perspectives between naïve and expert concepts, effective teaching, and instruction techniques for some of the teaching challenges that may arise within different stages. We are planning on revising this chapter further in the future.

Peer Review

Overall this chapter was well written, the tone and consistency of voice are similar to a published textbook. In general, I noticed a few minor technical issues such as the bolding of glossary terms and use of informal pronouns (i.e. "we" rather than "one").

I found that the strongest aspects were the structure and style of the chapter. The introductory paragraphs of the chapter and headings were particularly well done. I enjoyed how easy to follow it was and how concise the writing was. It gave a thorough overview of the main points and made connections between concepts without overusing education jargon which could intimidate or confuse a reader. The second paragraph of the introduction was well structured with regards to tying in the headings and subheadings of the chapter to the topic. The introductions for the headings were written in a consistent style with the chapter introduction and i found that it brought cohesion to the chapter.

One of the weaker aspects to this chapter was the reasoning and explanation behind some of the claims. Specifically in the "Difference between novice and expert thinking" section, the claim that differences are split into 3 sub-groups. The claim that there are three categories of differences needed more evidence and elaboration. Upon listing "essential skills in scientific reasoning", they didn't seem to relate to the previous sentence about the sub-groups. Perhaps it would be useful to elaborate on which specific skills in the list each sub-group has. This would help to illustrate the differences between the sub-groups and support the claim. Also, citing these findings would help strengthen the evidence! As a whole, the claims made can be better supported by using theories mentioned in other chapters such as constructivism or social learning in order to give context for the reasoning. EDUC320JLAM (discuss • contribs) 02:34, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review: Learning Science and Conceptual Change The strongest feature of this chapter in my opinion is the cohesiveness of the writing throughout the chapter despite of the fact that I know multiple people contributed to the chapter. While I was reading the chapter I couldn’t tell when the writers changed. Which is in my opinion is a very important aspect of collaborative project.

The weakest feature of the chapter in my opinion was that the term science/scientific was not clearly defined in the context of this chapter. I found myself wondering more than once what was meant by the term science. Does science mean nature, chemistry, physics, or all of the above? Perhaps this is being nit-picky but if I am confused then perhaps others might be. A suggestion to remedy this would be to clearly define the term science/scientific in the glossary at the beginning of the chapter.

Another thing I wanted to point out is that I feel that there could be more citations in the chapter. In some places I felt that it would be wise to cite because what you were writing was not common knowledge and clearly not your original idea. One specific example of this is from the first section, The Development of Naïve Scientific Preconceptions. In this section under the subheading of Naïve Preconceptions, the first sentence I feel should be cited as it is not something that I knew nor would I consider it common knowledge. EDUC320neeb (discuss • contribs) 03:46, 8 November 2015 (UTC)

Peer Review

Reading over the chapter of Learning Science and Conceptual Change, I feel as though there were lots of information that was significant in regards to its content and some good examples with references were given to elaborate on them. Some distinctive strengths of the chapter were found under the heading of Inquiry-based teaching vs. memorization of facts. Not only were other sources referred to in order to support their points, but another perspective on the idea was presented by further explaining why such simple facts and testing (as mentioned under their heading) would not be effective. I also thought that the last heading was very effective in allowing readers to critically reflect on the subject matter as they were provided with various challenges that the topic faced. Furthermore, I found that ending with possible solutions and touching on the present, technological aspect on things was very crucial to developing a deeper understanding of the concept in our modern society today.

Some aspects of the chapter that could be improved on would be the headings. Overall, the headings could have been a little more specific within its sections. Under some of the headings, it seemed as though it provided a broad point of the section - instead of it being like a "title" - that could have almost been included within the paragraph below as the topic sentence. They also could have been a little more organized in terms of bringing all the ideas of the headings together in the end to illustrate a general understanding with all the sections intertwined and related in some way. Sometimes the content under more than one heading seemed as though it could belong under one section instead of dividing them up which essentially created a little bit of confusion in between sections.

peer review

A strength of the chapter is the organization of the outline. The headings and subheadings are interesting since they intend to explain the development of naïve theories in early ages and describe the process of changing this theories into more scientific believes. The chapter is written in a story-like structure that takes the reader from a beginning point where the child develops this naïve beliefs to a desire point where students can apply scientific skills in order to reconstruct new theories. Another strong point was the use of examples to explain the main point of the headings and subheadings because examples can give the reader an opportunity to see how the strategies can be applied to one’s own life. Some of the weaknesses of the chapter are that some of the subheadings might need elaboration such as the one in “Essential elements of science” instructions. Also some of the claims made need to be backed up with evidence, at the end of the chapter there is a reference list but the reader might be confused of which article the claim is referring to since there is not an in text citation. Also a brief introduction of the article used to back up the claim might be necessary to give a general idea of what the author did and how the results apply to your claim. There is also some grammatical issues related to subject-verb agreement

Section on inquiry-based instruction vs. memorization of facts
It's not clear what is meant by "memorization of facts". One of the most successful ways to address scientific misconceptions is through refutational texts (texts that explain why the misconceptions are unjustifiable). It is a false dichotomy to portray the choice as between inquiry learning and memorization of facts because there are many other possibilities. Nesbit (discuss • contribs) 23:42, 23 November 2015 (UTC)