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6 Understanding How Scientific Knowledge Is Constructed
Pages 168-185

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From page 168...
... • Most children do not develop a sophisticated understanding of how scientific knowledge is constructed. • Methods of science dominate the school science curriculum, with little emphasis on the role of theory, explanation, or models.
From page 169...
... That is, citizens who understand how scientific knowledge is produced will be careful consumers of scientific claims about public scientific issues (e.g., global warming, ecology, genetically modified foods, alternative medicine) both at the ballot box and in their daily lives.
From page 170...
... UNDERLYING MODEL OF THE NATURE AND DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE Before considering the research that may elucidate the intellectual re sources and challenges that learning this strand might pose to children in the K-8 years, we briefly review approaches the field has taken to articulate the underlying model of building scientific knowledge. In this explication, we consider the goals of the enterprise, the nature and structure of scientific knowledge, and how knowledge is developed, with a focus on what is most relevant for student learning.
From page 171...
... Acknowledging variable certainty, Sandoval argues, invites students to engage the ideas critically and to evaluate them using epistemological criteria. Another approach to defining the aspects of understanding the epistemology of science that science curriculum should inhere is to consider the aspects of epistemology that have been linked to enhancing the development of science understanding.
From page 172...
... They found that students' pretest modeling knowledge was the only variable that was a significant predictor of success for all three posttest measures, and it was the best predictor of both posttest content and modeling knowledge. While these studies examine but a few slices of epistemology, they suggest that certain features of epistemological understanding can offer students power ful leverage for science learning.
From page 173...
... throughout elementary school. Young children's understanding of the constructive nature of knowledge itself has not been studied extensively, but the limited research suggests that upper elementary school students tend to fall short of viewing knowledge as rooted in a theoretical world view.
From page 174...
... In later adolescence or early adulthood, some individuals may pass through relativism to embrace a contextualist commitment to reasoned judg ment, although this move is by no means typical or inevitable. The indi vidual continues to understand that knowledge is neither certain nor com plete but comes nevertheless to accept that, with good judgment and careful reason, it is possible over time to achieve successively closer approxima tions of the truth.
From page 175...
... And once again, the relations between the lines of research are complex. Relevant lines of research include the science-specific developmental literature, the epistemic cognition literature focused on understanding of science as a way of knowing, and survey-based data focused on children's beliefs about the nature of scientific knowledge and how it is constructed.
From page 176...
... We sug gest, however, an additional factor that may explain this finding, but that is not considered in this body of research. Children are rarely taught about controversy in science, so why would they come to view scientific knowl edge as contested?
From page 177...
... As noted in other chapters, in the upper elementary school years, the process of scientific knowledge construction is typically represented as experiment, with negligible acknowledgment of the role of interpretation or, more generally, the active role of the scientist in the process of knowledge construction. In the early grades, the typical emphasis on description of phenomenology through the basic science process skills of observation, categorization, measurement, etc., also reflects a distorted image of science, far removed from a constructivist epistemology.
From page 178...
... De sign studies, in which researchers create conditions favorable to students' learning about the scientific enterprise, show that elementary and middle school students can develop their understanding of how scientific knowl edge develops (Carey et al., 1989; Khishfe and Abd-El-Khalick, 2002) , in cluding a more sophisticated understanding of the nature and purpose of scientific models (Gobert and Pallant, 2001; Schwartz and White, 2005)
From page 179...
... Researchers have also identified important curricular features that support the development of a more sophisticated epistemology. Curricula can facilitate the epistemological development of students when they focus on deep science problems, provide students opportunities to conduct inquiry, and structure explicit discussion of epistemological issues (see, e.g., Bell and Linn, 2000; Davis, 1998; Smith and Wenk, in press)
From page 180...
... 3 • Explore the idea that thoughts have • Fosters metacognitive discourse consequences, and that what one among learners in order to illuminate thinks may influence what one students' internal representations chooses to see • Provides lots of examples from • Begin to differentiate understanding their personal work (which is saved what a peer is saying from believing from year to year) of student ideas what a peer is saying • Begin to comment on how their current ideas have changed from past ideas and to consider that current ideas may also need to be revised over time
From page 181...
... look for ways of representations of their thinking promoting conceptual capture in • Begin to employ analogies and the mind of the learner metaphors, discuss their explicit use, and differentiate physical models from conceptual models • Articulate and defend ideas about "what learning should be like" SOURCE: Smith et al.
From page 182...
... Instruction in K-8 science can signifi cantly advance their understanding of the nature and structure of scientific knowledge and the process by which it is constructed. Design studies, in which researchers create conditions favorable to students' learning about the scientific enterprise, suggest that elementary students can develop higher levels of how scientific knowledge develops.
From page 183...
... . On appropiate conception of teaching science: A view from studies of science learning.
From page 184...
... . Heavy books light on learning: AAAS Project 2061 evaluates middle grades science textbooks.
From page 185...
... . Bridging research and practice: A cognitively based classroom intervention for teaching experimentation skills to elementary school children.


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