Dr. Keith S. Taber
Publication:
Taber, K. S. (2004) Conceptual Development
in Alsop, S., Bencze, L. & Pedretti, E. (editors)
Analysing exemplary science teaching: theoretical lenses and
a spectrum of possibilities for practice
Buckingham: Open University Press, pp.127-135.
Introduction:
Much science learning is conceptual in nature. This
is not to deny the importance of the affective (or even the aesthetic) in
learning science, or the development of manipulative skills so essential
for a laboratory scientist. Students will develop attitudes about the role
of science in society, come to appreciate beauty in nature, acquire laboratory
techniques, develop their social and group work skills and much more: but
most science courses are traditionally largely concerned with ‘learning science’.
For scientists and science educators, science is an evolving and dynamic
body of knowledge that we use to make sense of, and – to some extent – control,
the world in which we live. The content of science is not an archive of facts,
but a complex set of related theories, laws, and so forth that we use to
model the world. Science is a highly conceptual business, and learning science
is about building – and developing – interconnecting frameworks of scientific
concepts. …