Papersfor Theoretical Understanding
(Is Using Discrepant Events an Effective Teaching Strategy to Promote Conceptual Change?
The Importance of Prior Knowledge in Science Education)
Brief Description of Assignment
In the assignments,I examinedthe theory of cognitive science which is often called “constructivism.”
The Importance of Prior Knowledge in Science Education informed me the fact that students have abundant and strong preconceptions before formal education. Therefore, in my instruction I have to actively elicit and connect students’ preconceptions with my teaching to promote their conceptual understanding.
Besides, the effect of discrepant events as a way to promote conceptual change was investigated. Usually, the cognitive conflict caused by a discrepant event is believed to lettingstudents to confront their misunderstanding, leading to conceptual change. However, I found it is not true. Variety of response types to a discrepant event were revealed and discussed. Many learners often fail to induce a meaningful cognitive conflict. Moreover, students’ learning attitude seems to be a mediator that affects the efficiency of discrepant events for cognitive conflict.
Connectionsto the SLO of theoretical understanding
I set up the ultimate goal of my practice as conceptual understanding since I became a teacher. So, I am interested in the theory of conceptual change which emphasizes students’ active participation in and responsibility for their own learning. The assignments about the importance of prior knowledge and the effect of discrepant events equip me with theoretical understanding about how students learn. I have learned that my role as a teacher is to make learning environments student-centered not only hands-on but also minds-on.
Reflection
The assignment‘The Importance of Prior Knowledge in Science Education’was for a panel work. Dr.Rivas gave me praise for this work because he didn’t expect the work to be that thorough. In our panel work, we were supposed to take a position and defend our position against the opposite position. My position was for “Prior knowledge is the most important thing for science teacher to be successful.” I think this protocol is kind of childish, butit highlights the importance of being familiar with students’ prior knowledge to make our instruction more effective. So, I did a comprehensive work and learned the importance of student-centered instruction. I came to understand the need for my pedagogical content knowledge.
The assignment ‘Is Using Discrepant Events an Effective Teaching Strategy to Promote Conceptual Change?’ was for position paper. While my classmates took positions for the American or Californian educational policies, I wrote the paper from a general educational problem because I am not familiar with those issues. Dr. Herr asked us to design or collect lab activities for discrepant events to induce the need to know for our students.So, I got interested in using discrepant events and began to collect information about discrepant events. First, I searched for rational of using discrepant events, which led me to write the paper. I found that as usual there is no one perfect solution for all problems. I mean using discrepant events is just “a” way to teach for conceptual understanding. In fact, it is the beginning step of having students confront their misconceptions in the process of conceptual change. I also learned the importance of students’ active learning attitude that affects the effect of discrepant events.
In those papers, I focused on only “individual constructivism”. However, in the future, I will study more about the “social constructivism”because the classroom environment is a small learning community in which students help each other learn. In addition, I will exam the effect of motivation or metacognition that influence students’ learning attitude for conceptual change.