Mapping for Conceptual Chage: Concept Mapping Activities Encourage Students to Develop Scientific Understanding

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Students' understanding of science develops through everyday experiences--as a result they come to the science classroom with their own notions of how the world works. As teachers, we often must help students overcome their prior naive notions and move them toward a more scientific understanding. This process, known as conceptual change, is fundamental to student learning. It can be aided with strategies designed to help students rationalize their perceptions in light of accepted scientific understanding. This article outlines one such strategy: a process of recursive concept mapping we call "mapping for conceptual change. " A process of teaching and learning science Conceptual change theory describes a well-established learning process (Duit 2003). The basic tenet of this theory is that humans develop strongly held notions about science that are not consistent with accepted scientific understanding. As a result, formal science learning must involve a process of addressing and reforming these ideas (Posner et al. 1982). Teachers need to help students identify their existing ideas and modify them based on scientific knowledge. National and state standards documents and adopted district curriculum are the vehicles for communicating the nature and structure of accepted scientific understanding, and assessments measure a student's ability to articulate and discern that understanding. For students to experience conceptual change, they must first become dissatisfied with their prior understanding. An appropriate instructional strategy involves presenting an alternative idea that is consistent with accepted scientific understanding. To be considered successful, students must be able to properly apply their new science knowledge to a novel situation. For example, a student can use new understanding of natural selection to predict the consequences of removing an organism from a specific ecosystem. Metacognition, the act of thinking about one's own thinking, is a critical component in the conceptual change process. Recursive concept mapping, which involves building on and restructuring the same concept map over time, can scaffold this change by providing an avenue for representing and evaluating students' thinking. A conceptual workbench Concept maps, graphic organizers that show connections among ideas, are thinking tools that can offer insight into how a student identifies relationships among science concepts. In a relatively short period of time, teachers can glean the following by viewing student concept maps: prior knowledge, misconceptions, and the acquisition and accommodation of new knowledge as maps are modified over time. The information derived from analyzing student concept maps can be used to tailor lessons to the immediate needs of students, resulting in a richer, more meaningful science learning experience. Students who are trained to think about their thinking (i.e., to be metacognitive) can use the process of concept mapping to identify how their ideas are similar and different from accepted scientific knowledge (Novak 2002). Recursive concept mapping affords them the opportunity to evaluate and restructure their evolving understanding of science. In our classrooms, concept maps provide a workbench for conceptual change. The instructional process Successful mapping for conceptual change requires a trusting classroom culture that encourages discussion and reflection. For the process to work, students must feel comfortable expressing their ideas and engaging with experiences intended to change those ideas. Using conceptual change-based instruction, intellectual growth occurs as a result of the partnership between students adjusting their understanding and teachers scaffolding the experience with feedback. In our classrooms, mapping for conceptual change typically involves a series of four formal activities, as described in Figure 1 (p. …