The Understandings of Consequence
Project is supported by The National
Science Foundation.
Click here to visit our Teacher Resource
Website.
Click here to learn more about the
Understandings of Consequence Fall
Institute 2006!
Research shows that students have difficulty achieving deep understanding of
many fundamental science concepts, for instance, the nature of matter, pressure,
density, and electrical circuits to name but a few. After students have presumably
learned the scientific explanations, they often revert back to their initial
explanations.
The Understandings of Consequence Project has demonstrated that part of the
problem arises from differences in how students and scientists think about cause
and effect. Scientific explanations often require students to structure knowledge
in ways that contradict their expectations about the nature of how causes and
effects behave. Such explanations can involve: causal mechanisms that are
inferred or abstract; causal patterns that extend beyond linear and unidirectional
to cyclic, reciprocal, and non-sequential; correspondences between causes and
effects that are in various respects probabilistic; and causal agents that are
decentralized and involve aspects of emergence. These are ways of thinking that
students typically are not familiar with. Thus students attempt to assimilate
information about complex concepts into simplistic causal structures, which
ultimately distort the information.
In order to achieve deep understanding of scientific explanations, students need
to learn the levels of these dimensions that fit the level of explanation needed.
We have developed a taxonomy of causal models to guide these teaching and
learning efforts. We have also developed a taxonomy of epistemological
"moves", such as comparing more than one model and being alert to possible
gaps in one's explanation, that serves scientific inquiry and lead to more complex
conceptions.
Through a series of intervention studies, the project demonstrated that impacting
students' assumptions about the nature of causality is effective in helping
students restructure their knowledge and achieve scientific understandings. We
engaged students in activities designed to reveal the causal structure of a concept
and in explicit discussion about the nature of causality involved. For instance, in
exploring the role of density in sinking and floating, students are shown a small
piece of candle that sinks when placed in a liquid and are asked to predict what
will happen when a big piece of candle is placed in another container of liquid.
When it floats, students start to explore what is going on. The outcome and
ensuing discussion pushes them beyond a linear, feature-based causality of "the
weight makes it sink" to an interactive causality, where they begin to focus on
the liquid and the object and recognize the causal pattern is a relationship
between greater and lesser density of objects and liquid. The papers below
elaborate our findings for each topic of study.
Our recent papers discuss our findings on transfer. In general, we found good
evidence that students can transfer their understanding of structurally similar
causal forms between science concepts with and without support and that they
can transfer their understanding about the nature of causality to structurally nonsimilar causal forms with support.
The Understandings of Consequence Curriculum Units on Density, Ecosystems,
Electrical Circuits, and Air Pressure are available at our Teacher Resource
Website. Some of these units are featured on the Essential Science Series airing
on the Annenberg CPB channel (http://www.learner.org).
With NSF support (#ESI-0455664), we are currently collaborating with the
Harvard Smithsonian Science Media Group to develop an interactive website and
professional development materials for teachers. Teachers interested in hearing
more about it and possibly becoming involved in the design and test phases of
the project should contact us.
Phase 4 Project Team:
Principal Investigator:
Tina Grotzer
Advisor:
David Perkins
Research Assistants:
Rebecca Lincoln
Dorothy MacGillivray*
Sarah Mittlefehldt
Kiki Donis
Rebekah Gould
Belinda Basca
Carolyn Houghton
Collaborating Teachers:
Rich Carroll
Lucy Morris
Val Tobias
MaryAnn Bernstein
Dave Thibault
Michael Edgar
Lynda Verity
Gini MacAuley
Kim Piccolo
Jim Stanger
Elaine Sheehan
Eric Buchovecky
Eileen Kenneally
Margot Sudbury
Rose Honey
Sun Kim
Daniel Record
Kristen Record
Susie Shaw
Maritess Panlilio (Harvard)
Jennifer James (Harvard)
Melanie Pincus (MIT)
Katya Levitan-Reiner (Smith)
Alice Yang (Harvard College)
Graduate Research Assistants:
Becky DeVito
Gina Ritscher
Kelly Leahy
Laura Jung
Sun Kim
Daniel Record
Kristen Record
Susie Shaw
Rose Honey
Scientific Advisors:
Sue Mattson (Harvard
Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics)
Yossi Snir (University of Haifa,
Israel)
Carlos Vasco (Nacional
University, Bogota, Colombia)
Roger Sudbury (MIT Lincoln
Labs)
Science Media Group Collaborators:
Matt Schneps
Nancy Finkelstein
Alex Griswold
Clive Grainger
Education Development Center (EDC)
Outside Evaluator:
Daphne Miner
Programmers:
Lee Campbell
Ben Fu, MIT Media Lab
Undergraduate Research Assistants:
Mickey Muldoon
Maritess Panlilio
Jennifer James
Melanie Pincus (MIT)
Katya Levitan-Reiner (Smith
College)
Alice Yang
* italics denote people who were involved in an earlier phase of the project
Selected Publications and Presentations
Documents are in PDF Format. To download Adobe Acrobat Reader, click here:
Grotzer, T.A., & Lincoln, R. (in press). Educating for "intelligent environmental
action" in an age of global warming, in S. Moser & L. Dilling (Eds.)
Communicating Urgency--Facilitating Social Change: Strategies for Dealing
with the Climate Crisis. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).
Perkins, D.N., & Grotzer, T.A. (2005). Dimensions of causal understanding: The
role of complex causal models in students' understanding of science. Studies in
Science Education, 41, 117-166.
Grotzer, T.A., Houghton, C.A., Basca, B., Mittlefehldt, S., Lincoln, R., &
MacGillivray, D. (2005). Causal patterns in density: Lessons to infuse into air
pressure units. Cambridge, MA: Project Zero, HGSE.
DeVito, B., & Grotzer, T.A. (2005, April). Characterizing Discourse in Two
Science Classrooms by the Cognitive Processes Demonstrated by Students and
Teachers. Paper presented at the National Association of Research in Science
Teaching (NARST) Conference, Dallas, TX.
Grotzer, T.A. (2005, April). Transferring Structural Knowledge about the Nature
of Causality to Isomorphic and Non-Isomorphic Topics. Paper presented at the
American Educational Research Association (AERA) Conference, Montreal,
Quebec.
Grotzer, T.A. (2004, October). Putting everyday science within reach:
Addressing patterns of thinking that limit science learning. Principal
Leadership,16-21.
Grotzer, T.A., & Sudbury, M. (2004). Causal patterns in simple circuits.
President and Fellows of Harvard College for Project Zero, Harvard Graduate
School of Education, Cambridge, MA.
Basca, B.B., & Grotzer, T.A. (2003). Causal patterns in air pressure-related
phenomena. President and Fellows of Harvard College for Project Zero, Harvard
Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA.
Grotzer, T.A. (2003). Learning to understand the forms of causality implicit in
scientific explanations. Studies in Science Education. 39, 1-74.
Grotzer, T.A., & Basca, B.B. (2003). Helping students to grasp the underlying
causal structures when learning about ecosystems: How does it impact
understanding? Journal of Biological Education, 38,(1)16-29.
Grotzer, T.A. (2003, March). Transferring structural knowledge about the nature
of causality: An empirical test of three levels of transfer. Paper presented at the
National Association of Research in Science Teaching (NARST) Conference,
Philadelphia, PA.
Mittlefehldt, S., & Grotzer, T.A. (2003, March). Using metacognition to
facilitate the transfer of causal models in learning density and pressure. Paper
presented at the National Association of Research in Science Teaching (NARST)
Conference, Philadelphia, PA.
Ritscher, R., Lincoln, R., & Grotzer, T.A. (2003, March). Understanding density
and pressure: How students' meaning-making impacts their transfer of causal
models. Paper presented at the National Association of Research in Science
Teaching (NARST) Conference, Philadelphia, PA.
Grotzer, T.A. (2002). Causal patterns in ecosystems. Cambridge, MA: Project
Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Grotzer, T.A. (2002). Expanding our vision for educational technology:
Procedural, conceptual, and structural knowledge. Educational Technology,
42(2) 52-59.
Basca, B.B., & Grotzer, T.A. (2001, April). Focusing on the nature of causality
in a unit on pressure: How does it affect students understanding? Paper
presented at the annual conference of the American Educational Research
Association, Seattle, WA.
Bell, B., Carroll, R., & Grotzer, T.A. (2000, April). How causal models can help
or hinder an understanding of force and motion concepts. Paper presented at the
National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Conference, Orlando.
Bell-Basca, B., Grotzer, T.A., Donis, K., & Shaw, S. (2000, April). Using
domino and relational causality to analyze ecosystems: Realizing what goes
around comes around. Paper presented at the National Association of Research
in science Teaching, New Orleans, LA.
Donis, K., & Grotzer, T.A. (2000, April). Teaching about domino and cyclic
causality to help students understand ecosystems. Paper presented at the National
Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Conference, Orlando.
Edgar, M., & Grotzer, T.A. (2000, April). Causal dimensions that create
difficulty in understanding evolution. Paper presented at the National Association
for Research in Science Teaching (NARST) Conference, New Orleans, LA.
Grotzer, T.A. (2000, April). How conceptual leaps in understanding the nature
of causality can limit learning: An example from electrical circuits. Paper
presented at the annual conference of the American Educational Research
Association, New Orleans, LA.
Grotzer, T.A., & Perkins, D.N. (2000, April). A taxonomy of causal models: The
conceptual leaps between models and students’ reflections on them. Paper
presented at the annual conference of the National Association for Research in
Science Teaching, New Orleans, LA.
Grotzer, T.A., & Sudbury, M. (2000, April). Moving beyond underlying linear
causal models of electrical circuits. Paper presented at the annual conference of
the National Association for Research in Science Teaching, New Orleans, LA.
Houghton, C., Record, K., Bell, B., & Grotzer, T.A. (2000, April).
Conceptualizing density with a relational systemic model. Paper presented at the
National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST) Conference,
New Orleans, LA.
Perkins, D.N., & Grotzer, T.A. (2000, April). Models and moves: Focusing on
dimensions of causal complexity to achieve deeper scientific understanding.
Paper presented at the annual conference of the American Educational Research
Association, New Orleans, LA.
Sudbury, M., Grotzer, T.A., & Bell, B. (2000, April). Helping students learn
about electricity by examining their causal stories. Paper presented at the
National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) Conference, Orlando.
Grotzer, T.A., & Bell, B.B. (1999). Negotiating the funnel: Guiding students
toward understanding elusive generative concepts. In L. Hetland & S. Veenema
(Eds.), The Project Zero Classroom: Views on Understanding. Cambridge, MA:
Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Click here to link to papers from Complex Causality and Conceptual Change,
American Educational Research Association (AERA) Symposium, April 2001.
This project is supported by the National Science Foundation under
Grant No. REC-9725502 to Tina Grotzer and David Perkins. Any
opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed here
are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the
National Science Foundation.
Brandi Turnbow
9/20/06
Understandings of Consequence Article Review
Brief Summary
The article’s basic premise is that students have difficulty achieving deep understanding
of many fundamental science concepts, and that after students have learned the scientific
explanations, they revert back to their initial explanations. The article states that the
Understandings of Consequence demonstrates that the way students think about cause
and effect is the reason for the reversion. Students learn through scaffolding and
framework structure that forces them to fit what they learn into a framework that already
exists, there by “distorting” the desired outcomes to fit their prior knowledge. The
researchers have created the taxonomy of causal models to help guide teaching and
learning, and ask both teachers and learners to compare multiple models and look at gaps
in explanations. The researchers found that they could help restructure students
understanding of causality and further their understanding. They also found that students
could apply their understanding about causality to other non-similar situations.
Analysis
The article seeks to solve what I see as a big problem in science education. Restructuring
the way students take in, process, and interpret what they are exposed to, makes a big
difference in the information they walk away with. It also affects the way they apply what
they have learned to new concepts. The focus on cause and effect is such a big deal
because that is the essence of science, and it is hard to teach, and as a student difficult to
understand.
The table of taxonomy of causal models breaks down the four types of causal models and
seeks to give the instructor tools to break down and better explain how each model is
different, and therefore allows students to see detailed differences and thereby
restructuring their processing of causal problems.
The taxonomy of epistemological "moves" breaks down and allows teachers to see
defined relationships in the progression of a scientific model, how it performs, and the
analyzed outcomes. This can better help teachers to explain how to interpret how a model
performs, and what different performances by different models means.
Article’s strengths and weaknesses
In my opinion the strengths of this article is the amount of research put into this project.
The research team is very large and members of the team are very highly respected
researchers who have been working in the field of educational research for nearly thirty
years. The collaborating institutions such as Harvard, and the Smithsonian are highly
regarded as top of the field. Not only does the article develop a highly detailed, easy to
understand taxonomy, based on classroom research, but it also sites many earlier research
projects to back up the validity of the taxonomies.
The only weakness I see in the article is that I would have liked more real life examples.
The floating candle example is good, but as a reader I would like more examples to help
strengthen my own understanding of how you can apply the taxonomies in the classroom.
Implications
The implications of this research could drastically improve science education by helping
teachers better breakdown, and explain one of the basic driving forces of scientific
discovery, cause and effect.
Reflection
Seeing that I started this homework at ten thirty at night, after working and schooling a
fourteen-hour day. I’m not sure I was really able to full grasp and internalize the true
beauty and essence of the article. Though, now that I have discovered this research, I will
definitely delve deeper when my brain is working and apply it to how I plan my structure
and use student’s prior knowledge. I have attended Harvard’s PZ institutes and found
them to be the driving force behind many my methods of successful teaching. So yes I
really trust what they have to say. Thus putting this research into practice will be well
worth the time and effort.