Science educators and those who investigate science learning have tended, for good reason, to focus their attention on students' conceptual development, Such a focus is, however, too narrow to provide full and proper understanding of the complexities of original science learning. Recently developmental cognitive psychologists have called on the work of postpositivistic philosophers of science, especially Thomas Kuhn, to bolster their research into conceptual development in science acquisition. What these psychologists have not recognized is that Kuhn's position is actually a (...) derivative of Wittgenstein's methodological nominalism, a viewpoint far more favorable to behaviorism than cognitive psychology. After drawing out some of the consequences of this fact for the developmental cognitive psychologist program for studying science learning, we suggest our own radical alternative. Drawing on Floden, Buchmann and Schwille's idea of “Breaking with Everyday Experience” we propose an alternative notion of original science learning in terms of Alfred Schutz's modification of Williams James' many worlds thesis. The many worlds thesis will allow us to better understand students' difficulty in learning idealized worlds such as science, worlds that represent a discontinuous break with ordinary everyday practical experience. (shrink)

In the literature on reflection in teaching, authors frequently lament the lack of clarity in understandings of this concept, despite its wide acceptance as a phenomenon beneficial to teaching and learning. This dissertation reports a study of this literature that attempts to clarify the meaning of reflection and to establish a methodology for examining such a complex concept. Three analyses, each intended to explore the literature on reflection from a different perspective, comprise the study. The first is an analysis of (...) the literature on reflection in three professional communities---continuing professional development, higher education and teacher education---to establish general themes in this literature. The second analysis examines definitions of reflection from the three communities, focusing in particular on processes and rationales of reflection. The third analysis explores a variety of critiques of reflection to determine predominant epistemologies and recurring themes in the literature. The merging of the results of the three analyses leads to a framework for understanding reflection. This integrative framework highlights the importance of underlying epistemologies as the bases for different understandings of reflection and shows the intricate interrelationships among four major themes in the literature: the processes involved in reflection, the rationales behind it, the context in which it occurs, and its connection to action. The framework also points to the link between the self and the reflective context, the possibilities of reflection in-, on-, for-, and as-action, the unclear connection between the cognitive and affective processes and the movement from internal to external rationales. The study contributes both conceptually and methodologically by making sense of the range of ways reflection has been understood and by providing a possible model for exploring a complex concept. It provides a consistent language for discussing reflection, demonstrates the complexities of the concept and the interrelationships of the themes contained in the literature, allows for the situating of individual works within the literature, increases understanding of the connection of reflection and action, and helps to position the concept of reflection within broader theories of cognition and social practice. (shrink)

This paper is a discussion of the concept ‘student active forms of learning’. It aims not at conclusions, but at a perspicuous representation—a map for future navigation and understanding of the concept. From the perspective of philosophy of education, I characterize and discuss issues relating to student active learning in the paper. The context for my discussion is higher education. Further, I contrast student active learning to a form of learning that is allegedly passive, the lecture, which traditionally is the (...) main form of learning in higher education. I proceed by assessing arguments in favor of the two forms by way of a philosophical analysis, a main component of which is transparent exposition. Positive conclusions are not the main concern, but rather to demonstrate possibilities. Still, two results of the discussions in the paper are noteworthy: ‘student active learning’ is a weak construct, it being too general or even contradictory; the lecture is not passive, and a student-centered education, consequently, should not be construed as a dismissal of lecturing. (shrink)

Some philosophers of education think that there is a pedagogically informative concept of training that can be gleaned from Wittgenstein's later writings: training as initiation into a form of life. Stickney, in 'Training and Mastery of Techniques in Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy: A response to Michael Luntley'takes me to task for ignoring this concept. In this essay I argue that there is no such concept to be ignored. I start by noting recent developments in Wittgenstein scholarship that raise serious issues about (...) how we should handle the translation of Arbrichtung and arbrichten. I then concentrate on the substantive philosophical issues about the very idea that training can have a pedagogically productive role in education. I show that what work training does is a function of the prior skill set of the trainee. This means that we have to endorse some form of rationalism and acknowledge that the learner can only respond to training if they already possess sufficient mental equipment to generate the appropriate responses. (shrink)

Responding to Michael Luntley's article, ‘Learning, Empowerment and Judgement’, the author shows he cannot successfully make the following three moves: (1) dissolve the analytic distinction between learning by training and learning by reasoning, while advocating the latter; (2) diminish the role of training in Wittgenstein's philosophy, nor attribute to him a rationalist model of learning; and (3) turn to empirical research as a way of solving the philosophical problems he addresses through Wittgenstein. Drawing on José Medina's analysis of the fundamental (...) role of training in Wittgenstein's later philosophy, the paper offers a tour of key passages in the Investigations and other works to develop an understanding of what Wittgenstein meant by ‘mastery of techniques’. In opposition to Luntley's liberal‐individual, or his subject as rational agent, the author explores Wittgenstein's non‐foundationalist, forms of life approach to how we act with agreement. More effort must be given to differentiating Wittgenstein's view from that of the analytic school, which Luntley appears to echo despite his criticism of the analytic divide. (shrink)

Perspective taking is a critical yet tangled construct that is used to describe a range of psychological processes and that is applied interchangeably with related constructs. The resulting ambiguity is particularly vexing in science education, where although perspective taking is recognized as critical to informed citizens’ ability to negotiate scientifically related societal issues, or socioscientific issues via socioscientific reasoning, the precise nature of perspective taking remains elusive. To operationalize perspective taking, a theoretical conceptual analysis was employed and used to position (...) perspective taking within the context of SSR. The resulting, more precise construct identified as socioscientific perspective taking requires engagement with others or their circumstances, an etic/emic shift in one’s viewpoint, and a moral context guided by conscience. (shrink)