The notes quoted below are from the learning-science-concepts group
at yahoogroups.co.uk. The following is a commentary on them.

I have now read about half, maybe a bit more, of the materials in the
Foundations of Chemistry (FoC) issue mentioned below, including the
opening editorial and the first several articles. It strikes me that
notes such as the one below by Scerri and many of the articles in
this issue are very good examples of a failure to advance the
discussion in any way that even remotely resembles academic and
intellectual ideals many imagine we all ascribe to. Intellectual
civility is but one problem that comes to mind, in the issue of FoC
and certainly in the note below.

The failure is on several counts...

1. What is represented as constructivism has little resemblance to
principled efforts to describe it. One of the most principled
efforts has been that of Ernst von Glasersfeld (It is interesting to
note that his name is consistently misspelled by at least one author
in the issue and this is apparently not picked up on and corrected in
the editorial process). The consequence, as with others such as
Matthews, is that a target is *wherever* one aims. Convenient for
the authors, but anyone who really bothers to consider the nature of
what they are railing against one realizes that the "disprove
constructivism" authors are railing against nearly any idea that
differs from their own. Hardly, an approach to favorably affect the
thinking of someone looking critically at the arguments.

2. Possibly the most fundamental problem is a logical error which
renders typical efforts to "prove constructivism wrong." Those lines
of reasoning not garbled by aiming at the "it's everywhere" target
essentially boil down to: constructivism violates basic tenets of
realism. Big surprise, since carefully developed notions of
constructivism were developed out of conscious rejections of some of
these basic tenets of realism. These principled efforts should not
be expected to be consistent with views held by realists.

Sadly, most of those arguing against constructivism never seem to
realize this and take the basic tenets of realism as given. Sure
there are those in whose writing and actions basic tenets of their
claimed constructivism are not in evidence. Such is also the case in
the field of Newtonian mechanics, a topic taught widely in physics.
The state of understanding and the apparent lack of complete internal
consistency renders the chances of students developing deep
understanding to nearly nil. Yet, we do not attack Newtonian
mechanics on this basis.

If the debate along these lines were instead to focus on comparison
of the basic tenets in a way that both sides were convinced the other
understood the nature of the bases of constructivism and realism, the
resulting discussion would indeed be a breath of fresh air in the
situation. Of course, the outcome of thoughtful attention to the
issues at this level is generally that the basic assumptions of a
view are generally beyond the point of being provable or disprovable.

3. More than half way thru the issue FoC, I have yet to see any
reference to data to support the arguments. (Articles with data in
them no doubt are referenced, but not for evidence from or of data.)
The most dramatic, unequivocal statements made against constructivism
seem to appeal to authority, the authority of science. Yet, as the
lead article points out, science claims to distinguish itself from
other fields because it does not accept authority. How can
proponents defend themselves then by appeal to authority?

While claims in the FoC issue are that constructivism has "taken
over" science education, it is simply not the case that
constructivism prevails either in textbooks or the classroom
practices of most teachers in English speaking countries around the
world. But, even if one does not believe this statement, one merely
need to look at science education before the advent of
constructivism. The discussion using the term, constructivism, in
science education seems to have arisen in the 80's. (No, Kuhn was not
constructivist. A very good description of the body of Kuhn's work,
endorsed by Kuhn is Reconstructing Scientific Revolutions by Paul
Hoyningen-Huene, University of Chicago Press, 1993.) Evidence of the
effects of instruction in science have been recorded in an extensive
body of academic work.

There is an excellent bibliography of work in the area of student
understanding of the phenomena taught in science. It currently has
nearly 7000 entries (back to 1903) and can be found at: <http://
ipn.uni-kiel.de/aktuell/stcse/stcse.html>. A major finding is that
in standard instruction students generally leave the instruction with
the same understanding they came to class with and that understanding
is fundamentally different than intended in the instruction. In this
work there are examples of efforts which do explicitly attempt to
take the basic tenets of carefully thought out constructivism into
account in which major changes in the understanding of the students
is observed. It seems strange that data about learning science seems
so studiously avoided in discussion of the educational implications.

4. There are a number comments which suggest the authors' view of
the purpose of chemistry teaching. The purpose seems to be the
selection and training of chemists and other scientists. I strongly
suspect this does not sound much like education to many readers. If
this is the purpose of chemical education, what justification is
there for subjecting all of society to this vocation specific process
when most of society will not be chemists or scientists and do not
intend to in the first place? Shouldn't we restrict such vocational
selection and training to the group of students who come to us
indicating they want to major in our fields?

5. Except for their specific reference to chemistry education, so
far in the issue all of the anti-constructivism arguments made seem
to have been made and published already in other publications, such
as those by D. C. Phillips and M. Matthews referenced frequently in
the FoC issue. In the FoC issue there are a few insightful
suggestions as to things that can and should be investigated.
Taber's discussion, which is not attempting to disprove
constructivism, is ironic given the introductory editorial and the
articles that follow.

An example of a principled effort to describe a constructivist view:
a. "Knowing without metaphysics: Aspects of the Radical
Constructivist position" Ernst von Glasersfeld, available at <http://
www.kjf.ca/17-TAGLA.htm> on the Karl Jaspers Forum <http://www.kjf.ca/>
b. Radical Constructivism: A way of knowing and learning by Ernst
von Glasersfeld, Falmer Press, 1996.

For an example of an extended examination of constructivism involving
many scholars and which does meet high standards of scholarship,
consult: Constructivism in Education, L. Steffe and J. Gale (eds),
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1995.

The intellectual capacity surely exists to move the discussion to a
truly scholarly plane. The result of such a move would likely be
better science education and deeper understanding of our respective
professions. Isn't it time we moved the discussion in this direction?

Dewey Dykstra

On Oct 13, 2006, at 11:54 PM, cestsi04 wrote:

>
>
> As I recently mentioned the current issue of Foundations of
> Chemistry is a special issue
> devoted to Chemical Education and Constructivism. It includes a
> very interesting article by
> Keith Taber.
>
> Talking of different senses of 'constructivism' I attended a talk
> at the most recent ACS
> meeting in San Francisco in which a young woman speaker seemed to
> have a very strange
> notion of what the term means.
>
> She informed the audience of how she was planning to conduct a
> questionnaire with her
> students and that she expected them to respond that science
> progresses via scientists first
> performing experiments and then arriving at theories. She then
> paused significantly for
> audience approval which she of course obtained given that most
> chemical educators in the
> US have been brainwashed into thinking that this is what
> distinguishes a constructivist
> from a non-constructivist.
>
> Non constructivists and other objectionable people according to
> this mistaken view,
> believe in induction. They believe that objective experiments come
> first and then one
> arrives at theories and laws.
>
> A constructivists according to this mistaken view is anybody who
> objects to a positivist
> approach to such a positivist approach to science.
> But Popper objected to positivism and you certainly would not call
> him a constructivist
> given the criticism he poured on Kuhn one of the architects of true
> constructivism,
> meaning the view scientific knowledge is constructed not discovered
> and that social
> factors dictate theory choice rather than an independently existing
> world accessible
> through experiments.
>
>
> And it looks to me that Keith is heading in the same sort of
> direction. Of course like most
> sensible educators, but not all incidentally*, he distances himself
> from relativism but still
> he seems to equate constructivism merely with an opposition to
> positivism. I think this is
> a mistake Keith.
>
> *An example of a constructivist chemical educator who is even happy
> to count himself as a
> relativist is George Bodner, a much cited author in this field and
> in my view also
> thoroughly confused and philosophically naive.
>
>
> Eric Scerri,
> UCLA
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Eric Scerri's, The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance,
> OUP, 2006.
> (due to appear in the UK on Nov 1st)
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> On Oct 13, 2006, at 12:28 PM, Dr. Keith S. Taber wrote:
>
> At 21:50 -0700 12/10/06, Eric Scerri wrote:
>
> Š
> For example chemical education in the US is completely dominated by
> constructivists.
>
>
> It is always interesting to read Eric's comments on this, from his
> experience in a US
> context. In the UK, science education academics also tend to be
> almost exclusively
> constructivists. However this means something rather different
> here, as it refers to
> teaching science informed by our current best understanding of
> learning processes. * I
> strongly doubt that there are more than a handful of science
> teachers trained here who
> would be considered relativists. Indeed, one of our problems is
> trying to shift science
> education practice so that students do not develop a simplistic
> naive positivist impression
> that learning science is about being told out about the things that
> science has proved to
> be the case. In recent years, under a limited vision of the nature
> of science in the
> curriculum, any kind of open-ended investigative work has all but
> vanished to be replaced
> by straightforward 'fair-testing' in contexts where the students
> should know the outcomes
> in advance. ** The 14-16 curriculum has just changed - to a chorus
> of reactionary
> disapproval from those who feel it is a shift from solid conceptual
> learning to soft
> discussion. Supporters tend to see it as a move from the learning
> of many given facts, to a
> chance to explore the evidence behind scientific ideas. Only time
> will tell which view is
> closer to the mark. I obviously hope the latter.
>
> Keith
>
> .
>
>
>
>
>
> About this list:
>
> Purpose: an international forum for discussing aspects of learning
> in science, and for circulating news about publications, projects,
> etc., related to this theme.
>
> Membership: open to teachers at any level, researchers into
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>
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>
> homepage:
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> bookmarks to other sites:
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> bibliography on learning in science
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/learning-science-concepts/files/
>
> This list is a moderated discussion group (ie postings are vetted
> for relevance to the group theme).
>
> Moderator: Dr. Keith Taber, Faculty of Education, University of
> Cambridge.
> http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/staff/taber.html
>
>
> to join an un-moderated general science education discussion list,
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>

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr., Ph. D. Phone: (208)426-3105
Professor of Physics Dept: (208)426-3775
Department of Physics/MCF421/418 Fax: (208)426-4330
Boise State University ddykstra@...
1910 University Drive Boise Highlanders
Boise, ID 83725-1570 novice piper: GHB, Uilleann
<http://www.boisestate.edu/physics/Dykstra/Dyks.html>

"The problem in science is you never get to see the yak!"
--D. Dykstra, Science for Monks Project, 2006.

"...a physics major has to be trained to use today's physics whereas
a physics teacher has to be trained to see a development of physical
theories in his students' minds." -- H. Niedderer in
"International Conference on Physics Teachers' Education Proceedings"
Dortmund: University of Dortmund, p. 151, 1992.

"It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of
instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of
inquiry; for
this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in
need of
freedom; without this the plant goes to wreck and ruin without fail."
--A.
Einstein in "Autobiographical Notes," 1949.

"Now there are two theorems that form together the cardinal hinge on
which the whole structure of physical science turns. These theorems
are: (1) THERE IS A REAL OUTER WORLD WHICH EXISTS
INDEPENDENTLY OF OUR ACT OF KNOWING, and, (2) THE REAL
OUTER WORLD IS NOT DIRECTLY KNOWABLE." --M. Planck in
"Where Is Science Going?," 1932. (EMPHASIS in the original)

"As a result of modern research in physics, the ambition and hope,
still cherished by most authorities of the last century, that physical
science could offer a photographic picture and true image of reality
had to be abandoned." --M. Jammer in "Concepts of Force," 1957.

"If what we regard as real depends on our theory, how can we make
reality the basis of our philosophy? ...But we cannot distinguish
what is real about the universe without a theory...it makes no sense
to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what
reality is independent of a theory."--S. Hawking in "Black Holes
and Baby Universes" 1993.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++




++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dewey I. Dykstra, Jr., Ph. D. Phone: (208)426-3105
Professor of Physics Dept: (208)426-3775
Department of Physics/MCF421/418 Fax: (208)426-4330
Boise State University ddykstra@...
1910 University Drive Boise Highlanders
Boise, ID 83725-1570 novice piper: GHB, Uilleann
<http://www.boisestate.edu/physics/Dykstra/Dyks.html>

"The problem in science is you never get to see the yak!"
--D. Dykstra, Science for Monks Project, 2006.

"...a physics major has to be trained to use today's physics whereas
a physics teacher has to be trained to see a development of physical
theories in his students' minds." -- H. Niedderer in
"International Conference on Physics Teachers' Education Proceedings"
Dortmund: University of Dortmund, p. 151, 1992.

"It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of
instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of
inquiry; for
this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in
need of
freedom; without this the plant goes to wreck and ruin without fail."
--A.
Einstein in "Autobiographical Notes," 1949.

"Now there are two theorems that form together the cardinal hinge on
which the whole structure of physical science turns. These theorems
are: (1) THERE IS A REAL OUTER WORLD WHICH EXISTS
INDEPENDENTLY OF OUR ACT OF KNOWING, and, (2) THE REAL
OUTER WORLD IS NOT DIRECTLY KNOWABLE." --M. Planck in
"Where Is Science Going?," 1932. (EMPHASIS in the original)

"As a result of modern research in physics, the ambition and hope,
still cherished by most authorities of the last century, that physical
science could offer a photographic picture and true image of reality
had to be abandoned." --M. Jammer in "Concepts of Force," 1957.

"If what we regard as real depends on our theory, how can we make
reality the basis of our philosophy? ...But we cannot distinguish
what is real about the universe without a theory...it makes no sense
to ask if it corresponds to reality, because we do not know what
reality is independent of a theory."--S. Hawking in "Black Holes
and Baby Universes" 1993.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++





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