Socially Constructive Interaction for Fostering Conceptual Change

Abstract: In order to guide the design and assessment of successful intentional conceptual change at school, we examined third graders ’ learning processes using a series of lessons taught by a highly experienced teacher. The lesson unit consisted of 11 problems whose answers were to be predicted and discussed one at a time. All 21 students in the class successfully learned the target concept. Our analysis revealed that they started by confirming their rudimentary ideas taken from daily experiences, and then gradually developed theory-like concepts by repeatedly discussing their predictions to be confirmed with experiments. Toward the end of the unit, individual students could express their understanding in their own words, indicating that they successfully integrated their folk knowledge with scientific thinking. Further analysis of the dialogue contents indicated that some small-group discussions were effectively monitored and utilized by the rest of the class, to assure achievement of the entire class