Hi Keith and others

As with many frameworks for making sense of the world we live in, the value
of this particular framework can be assessed against criteria of theory
development, somewhat modified. Newton-Smith proposed a hierarchy of
features of good theories, also reported in Bird (Philosophy of Science).
At some stage, a new framework should be checked against existing ones to
determine relative power.

i would like us to think about ordinate, super- and sub-ordinate levels,
and whether this matches against curriculum progression (the intended
learning), student learning progress (experienced learning) and/or
historical progression (expert learning?). Conceptual or cognitive ecology
may help to to understand each of these aspects of learning (see my comment
above about whether it will prove to be a better framework) but discussion
in these three areas may prove fruitful. It may also be more fruitful to
begin with a specific example at this stage and work towards the more
general.

John Oversby

On Sep 13 2007, puni selva wrote:

> 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
>
>

--
From John Oversby
Institute of Education
Reading University
Reading
RG6 1HY
Tel 0118 378 5906