musing... a lot of overlap between conception and cognition.... parts of a
system(=ecology) influence each other and the influences fluctuate
continually....

"Dr. Keith S. Taber" <kst24@...> wrote: I've been thinking about the
notion of conceptual ecology. I found
this a very useful concept in an earlier study of developing
understanding of chemical bonding, and I'm revisiting the idea for my
current work.

The idea that the development of conceptual understanding takes place
in a kind of 'ecology' that constrains and channel the way
development can occur has an appeal, and this seems a useful
metaphor. I know there have been various discussions of the idea, and
what should/could be included, and some suggestions that 'learning
ecology' might be a more embracing concept, but I guess that depends
on the focus of a particular study.

I was looking at an example of a students thinking about science
concepts, and some of the 'habits of mind' she seemed to show, and
how what might be called 'cognitive style' seemed to be significant
in the way she understood ideas. I wondered if this was more
cognitive ecology than conceptual ecology, or - should be labelled
mental ecology to encompass both aspects of 'content' (knowledge) and
'process' (thinking). But of course the environment in which a
concept 'exists' in mind may comprise other concepts AND other
features that are not themselves concepts. So epistemological
commitments (e.g. the world can be described simply) rely on
concepts, but go beyond this. However they are not processes, and
like concepts they are activated in thinking. The distinction being
that they work at a metal level, perhaps on how to apply concepts,
rather than applying concepts.

Anyway, just musing 'aloud', but if anyone has any thoughts, or knows
any relevant work in this area that I might have missed, I'd be
interested in hearing about it.

Best wishes

Keith

--
Dr. Keith S. Taber

http://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/staff/taber.html
http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/kst24/

University Senior Lecturer in Science Education
Science Education Centre
University of Cambridge Faculty of Education
184 Hills Road
Cambridge CB2 8PQ
United Kingdom



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