1st Edition

Designing for Science Implications From Everyday, Classroom, and Professional Settings

Edited By Kevin Crowley, Christian D. Schunn, Takeshi Okada Copyright 2001
    512 Pages
    by Psychology Press

    512 Pages
    by Psychology Press

    This volume explores the integration of recent research on everyday, classroom, and professional scientific thinking. It brings together an international group of researchers to present core findings from each context; discuss connections between contexts, and explore structures; technologies, and environments to facilitate the development and practice of scientific thinking. The chapters focus on:
    * situations from young children visiting museums,
    * middle-school students collaborating in classrooms,
    * undergraduates learning about research methods, and
    * professional scientists engaged in cutting-edge research.

    A diverse set of approaches are represented, including sociocultural description of situated cognition, cognitive enthnography, educational design experiments, laboratory studies, and artificial intelligence. This unique mix of work from the three contexts deepens our understanding of each subfield while at the same time broadening our understanding of how each subfield articulates with broader issues of scientific thinking. To provide a common focus for exploring connections between everyday, instructional, and professional scientific thinking, the book uses a "practical implications" subtheme. In particular, each chapter has direct implications for the design of learning environments to facilitate scientific thinking.

    Contents: Preface. Part I: Fundamentals of Science Thinking. H.A. Simon, "Seek and Ye Shall Find": How Curiosity Engenders Discovery. M.A. Callanan, J.L. Jipson, Explanatory Conversations and Young Children's Developing Scientific Literacy. M. Azmitia, K. Crowley, The Rhythms of Scientific Thinking: A Study of Collaboration in an Earthquake Microworld. C. Schunn, J. Anderson, Acquiring Expertise in Science: Explorations of What, When, and How. K. Dunbar, What Scientific Thinking Reveals About the Nature of Cognition. R. Tweney, Scientific Thinking: A Cognitive-Historical Approach. Part II: Building for Scientific Thinking. D.E. Penner, Complexity, Emergence, and Synthetic Models in Science Education. D. Klahr, Z. Chen, E. Toth, From Cognition to Instruction to Cognition: A Case Study in Elementary School Science Instruction. R. Lehrer, L. Schauble, A. Petrosino, Reconsidering the Role of Experiment in Science Education. B. Loh, B.J. Reiser, J. Radinsky, D.C. Edelson, L.M. Gomez, S. Marshall, Developing Reflective Inquiry Practices: A Case Study of Software, Teacher, and Students. J. Shrager, High Throughput Discovery: Search and Interpretation on the Path to New Drugs. Part III: Evaluating Scientific Thinking. C.A. Chinn, B.A. Malhotra, Epistemologically Authentic Scientific Reasoning. K. Crowley, J. Galco, Everyday Activity and the Development of Scientific Thinking. J. Minstrell, Facets of Students' Thinking: Designing to Cross the Gap From Research to Standards-Based Practice. T. Okada, T. Shimokido, The Role of Hypothesis Formation in Psychological Research. P. Thagard, Internet Epistemology: Contributions of New Information Technologies to Scientific Research.

    Biography

    Kevin Crowley, Christian D. Schunn, Takeshi Okada

    "...this book offers a rewarding look at research on scientific thinking appropriate for graduate students, researchers, and faculty primarily in the areas of science education and history/philosophy of science. A good resource for all research university libraries."
    CHOICE