Learning To Learn Science: Instruction That Supports Conceptual Change.

This paper addresses the question of how teachers can support and facilitate conceptual change in student thinking. It begins with a discussion of the multiple meanings of the term conceptual change. An argument is presented for the notion that recent developments in research in science learning have dramatic implications for what students are expected to learn and how they are expected to learn it. These developments also have dramatic implications for how teachers might facilitate that learning. The focus of this paper is on the instructional practices of one teacher and includes a description of the instruction, learning goals, details on the presentation and analysis of data, and student responses to instruction. The study finds that in a very real sense, students in the classroom became metacognitive as a result of the teacher's instruction, taking greater control over the responsibility for their learning than is typically expected of most students. (Contains 22 references.) DDR)