In this study, I provide a microgenetic-historical account of learning in an informal setting: the conceptual change that occurred while a university-based scientific research laboratory investigated the absorption of light in rod-based photoreceptors of coho salmon, which the "dogma" had suggested to be related to the migration between…

A total of 136 eighth-grade math students from 2 Singapore schools learned from either productive failure (PF) or vicarious failure (VF). PF students "generated" solutions to a complex problem targeting the concept of variance that they had not learned yet before receiving instruction on the targeted concept. VF students…

A large body of research in the learning sciences has focused on students' commonsense science knowledge--the everyday knowledge of the natural world that is gained outside of formal instruction. Although researchers studying commonsense science have employed a variety of methods, 1-on-1 clinical interviews have played a unique role. The data…

A growing body of research has examined the experiential grounding of scientific thought and the role of experiential intuitive knowledge in science learning. Meanwhile, research in cognitive linguistics has identified many "conceptual metaphors" (CMs), metaphorical mappings between abstract concepts and experiential source domains, implicit in…

Many types of learning require the mapping of information across situations. The proposed organizational framework extends the cognitive study of mappings across problems to include mappings across representations, solutions, and sociocultural contexts. I apply one-to-one, one-to-many, and partial mappings to analyze representative cases that…

This study explores Knowledge Building as a principle-based innovation at an elementary school and makes a case for a principle- versus procedure-based approach to educational innovation, supported by new knowledge media. Thirty-nine Knowledge Building initiatives, each focused on a curriculum theme and facilitated by nine teachers over eight…

This article responds to an article by A. Gupta, D. Hammer, and E. F. Redish (2010) that asserts that M. T. H. Chi's (1992, 2005) hypothesis of an "ontological commitment" in conceptual development is fundamentally flawed. In this article, I argue that Chi's theoretical perspective is still very much intact and that the critique offered by Gupta…

Investigations of people's understanding of the evolution of species have focused mainly on secondary school and university students. Very few investigations have taken into consideration younger students, and none have related children's ideas about the origin of species to formal instruction on this topic. To help fill this gap, the present…

This article explores 11- to 16-year-old students' explanations for phenomena commonly studied in school chemistry from an inclusive cognitive resources or knowledge-in-pieces perspective that considers that student utterances may reflect the activation of knowledge elements at a range of levels of explicitness. We report 5 themes in student…

Invention activities are Productive Failure activities in which students attempt (and often fail) to invent methods that capture deep properties of a construct before being taught expert solutions. The current study evaluates the effect of scaffolding on the invention processes and outcomes, given that students are not expected to succeed in their…

Interacting with and translating across multiple representations is an essential characteristic of expertise and representational fluency. In this study, we explored the effect of interacting with and translating between representations in a computer simulation or in a paper-based assignment on scientific accuracy of undergraduate science…

The current experiment examined the potential effects of the method of propositional manipulation (MPM) as a lecturing method on motivation to learn and conceptual understanding of statistics. MPM aims to help students develop conceptual understanding by guiding them into self-explanation at two different stages: First, at the stage of…

This study aimed to identify if complementing representations of concrete objects with representations of abstract objects improves students' conceptual understanding as they use a simulation to experiment in the domain of "Light and Color". Moreover, we investigated whether students' prior knowledge is a factor that must be considered in deciding…

This study examines the practical work of a pair of students and an instructor using probeware in a mechanics lab. The aim of the study is to describe and discuss a type of interactional sequence that we refer to as "dark matter", the ordinary backdrop to the extraordinary sequences that are easily recognizable as clear-cut instances of learning.…

Children's worlds are increasingly populated by intelligent technologies. This has raised a number of questions about the ways in which technology can change children's ideas about important concepts, like what it means to be alive or smart. In this study, we examined the impact of experience with intelligent technologies on children's ideas about…