Please enable JavaScript.

Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.

Coming to Terms: Defining Conflicts in the Voice Pedagogy Vocabulary -…

- - - - CONDITIONS FOR CONCEPTUAL CHANGE
        
        Minimimal understanding, fuller understanding, accommodation (228-229)
        
        We have used the word accommodation to refer to such large-scale conceptual changes and the word assimilation to refer to those kinds of learning where a major conceptual revision is not required. (215)
        
        Accommodation: Accommodation can be viewed as a competition between conceptions. Once students are aware of an understandable and initially plausible alter- native to an existing conception, the relative status of these conceptions is the issue. Dissatisfaction with the existing conception decreases its status, while exploring the fruitfulness of an alternative conception increases the alternative's status (Hewson, 1983). As long as the existing conception's status is greater than the alternative's (for whatever reason), accommodation will not proceed. Whenever the alternative's status exceeds the existing conception's status, accommodation, for the time being, will move forward. But, as we have discussed, many factors affect status. Therefore, competition between conceptions results in a process ofaccommodation characterized by temporary advances, frequent retreats, and periods of indecision. ... It rarely seems characterized by either a flash of insight, in which old ideas fall away to be replaced by new visions, or as a steady logical progression from one commitment to another. Rather, it involves much fumbling about and many false starts and mistakes.
        (221)
      - Given our primary interest in accommodation, we can begin to develop a theory of conceptual change which describes how a person's current concep- tions function in judging new ones by describing the conditions necessary for an accommodation.
      - As previously described (Posner et al., 1982), the four conditions for an accommodation are as follows:
      - l. There must be dissatisfaction with existing conceptions. Scientists and students are unlikely to make major conceptual changes until they believe that less radical changes will not work.
      - A new conception must be minimally understood. The individual must be able to grasp how experience can be structured by a new conception sufficiently to explore the possibilities inherent in it.
      - A new conception must appear initially plausible. Any new concep- tion adopted must at least appear to have the capacity to solve the problems generated by its predecessors, and to fit with other knowl- edge, experience, and help. Otherwise it will not appear a plausible choice.
        
        There appear to be at least six ways by which a conception can become initially plausible.
        
        One finds it consistent with one's current metaphysical beliefs and epistemological commitments, that is, one's fundamental assumptions.
        
        One finds the conception to be consistent with other theories or knowledge about which one is aware.
        
        One finds the conception to be consistent with past experience.
        
        One finds or can create images for the conception, which match one's sense of what the world is or could be like.
        
        One finds the new conception capable of solving problems of which one is aware (i.e., resolving anomalies).
        
        One finds the conception to be analogous to some other conception with which he or she is already familiar.
      - A new conception should suggest the possibility of a fruitful research program. It should have the potential to be extended, to open up new areas of inquiry and to have technological and/or explanatory power.
        
        A person becomes committed to a conception because it helps interpret experiences, solve problems, and, in certain cases, meet spiritual or emotional needs. (220)... A new conception will appear fruitful to the extent that students are aware of, can generate, or can understand novel practical applications or experiments which the new conception suggests.