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Kevin D. McMahon
Student ID#: 78513
SED 625SC
November 26, 2006
Issue Paper
Providing Students with the Really Big Picture
The National Research Council reported in How People Learn that perhaps the
single most important distinction between experts and novices is the formers’ ability to
perceive the Big Picture of their domains (National Research Council, 2000 p.36). This
allowed them to conditionalize new knowledge, facilitate retrieval of existing knowledge,
and apply knowledge in new and creative ways. They reported that metacognition is an
important tool by which experts monitor their understanding and incorporate new
knowledge into existent paradigms. The NRC encouraged that curricula be developed
that will facilitate students to organize knowledge around Big Picture themes. The Big
Picture is often thought of as being associated within a specific domain. However, this
paper will propose that introducing students to the big unifying philosophical ideas of
epistemology, ontology, and ethics while providing them with the metacognitive tools to
help them connect new knowledge to these unifying ideas can facilitate students learning
of the sciences while allowing them to perceive the interconnectedness of all knowledge.
The domain of epistemology is one that I examined in two current events this
semester. In the article, Scientifically Based Research in Education: Epistemology and
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Ethics, the author, Elizabeth Adams St. Pierre, argued that science, as a aspect of the
broader field of epistemology has evolved into scientism which she defines as:
…science’s belief in itself: that is the conviction that we can no
longer understand science as one form of possible knowledge,
but rather must identify knowledge with science. (St. Pierre 2006
p.259)
This, she concludes, can lead to a scientific chauvinism which excludes other ways of
knowing. The current conflict between science and religion or some may argue the
inappropriate use of scientific methodology in the social sciences may be the result of a
naïve scientism or an aggressive challenge by some in the sciences for epistemological
dominance. She has encouraged a more modest role for science:
The science I value acknowledges that there are different truths
(but not that “anything goes”) and that our task as scientists
should be to produce different knowledge and produce
knowledge differently in order to enlarge our understanding of
those issues about which we care deeply. (St. Pierre, 2006
p.260)
Before one can agree or disagree with Ms. St. Pierre’s conclusions one should have an
understanding of how scientific methodology is integrated within the broader field of
epistemology.
One way of introducing epistemology to the science classroom is through the
history of discovery. Incorporating history with science investigation has multiple
pedagogical benefits according to Din Yin Yap in Integrating History with Scientific
Investigations (2006). The primary benefit the author reported was a better
understanding of scientific epistemology:
Using real historical cases … enhanced … students’
understanding of the nature of science, such as the notion that
scientific enquiry demands both careful observation and
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imagination. …that creativity plays an indispensable part in the
development of ideas…that scientific ideas are not absolute truth
as depicted in science textbooks…. Historical examples also
show that scientists, like ordinary people, may sometimes be
biased by preconceptions when making observations or
judgments. (Din Yin Yap, 2006 p.29)
What is absent in the above discussion is the mention of content standards. What is
implied, however, is that there is more to science than the content of its discoveries—
there is the process of discovery itself, that is, scientific epistemology, which is to be
valued and learned in its own right.
Scientific epistemology has proven to be a powerful tool in describing reality.
This success, as St. Pierre observed, has led to the hubris of scientism with its potential of
limiting our understanding of ontology to only that which is accessible to science, that is,
physical reality. If, however, science can learn from other ways of knowing than it may
participate in the discovery of realities that would otherwise be inaccessible to it. In his
essay, A Thing of Beauty, Arthur Miller tells a story that turns scientific epistemology and
its claim that “the experiment is king” on its head:
In Schrödinger’s first attempt to concoct his famous wave
equation, he looked for one that agreed with relativity theory.
The equation he came up with, however, was not supported by
experiment. Eventually he produced the Schrödinger equation,
which was not beautiful, but did at least fit the data. Dirac
thought that Schrödinger should have ignored the data and
persevered in his pursuit of a beautiful equation. Dirac did just
that. He discovered an equation that was consistent with
relativity theory but represented in a mathematics unfamiliar to
most physicists…. The problem was that it predicted particles
with negative energy, which everyone thought was an
impossibility. Werner Heisenberg condemned it as the “saddest
chapter in theoretical physics.” Shortly afterwards, Dirac
realized that these particles were actually antiparticles with
positive energy. They were later discovered in the laboratory.
Once again insisting on beauty in a mathematical theory
revealed unexpected features in nature. (Miller, 2006)
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Dirac is not alone on his insistence that aesthetics should be fundamental to how we do
science. Nobel Laureate, Richard Feynman observed, “You can recognize truth by its
beauty and simplicity.” (Augros, 1984) Should aesthetics become a part of science
education? Some science educators believe that it should. Mitchel Resnick from MIT
had students incorporate aesthetical principles in the construction of laboratory
instruments. His conclusion was that students were more committed to the discovery
process when they were encouraged to design their equipment to be beautiful (Resnick
2000)
Beauty represents a unifying principle of ontology. This beauty is not in the eye
of the beholder, rather it represents the harmonious interplay between the One and the
Many—a concept that works readily with science: cells  tissues  organs or the laws
of thermodynamics that extends to the Many of biology, chemistry, and physics.
Aesthetical principles such as these can provide students with a Big Picture that may
facilitate their conditionalizing, retrieving and applying of knowledge.
The research of Troy Sadler (2004) demonstrated that when students were
presented with ethical dilemmas they did not demonstrate any particular systematic
approach to their decision making process. A recent survey of American Youth
conducted by the Josephson Institute of Ethics (2006) revealed that:
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82% admit they lied to parent within the past year about something significant.
62% admit they lied to teacher within the past year about something significant.
60% cheated during a test at school within the past year.
23% stole something from a parent or other relative within the year.
19% stole something from a friend within the past year.
28% stole something from a store within the past year.
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These statistics may not be surprising to those of us that work with young people, but
what is truly disturbing is that this same survey revealed that 92% of the students
surveyed stated that they were “satisfied with my own ethics and character.” Clearly,
these young people can be characterized as ethical novices. What they lack is a Big
Picture which the NRC states is necessary to move from novice to expert—the kind of
expertise that moves from theory to practice! The Big Picture used to be provided by the
various faith communities, but as we move towards an increasingly secular society ethics
has become disengaged from its religious structures. Freed from these ontological and
epistemological moorings ethics has drifted into a form of lazy self-interested
pragmatism and in some instances nihilistic hedonism (ex: Girls & Boys Gone Wild).
What does this have to do with science education?—Everything!
Science is often characterized as morally neutral—perhaps it is, but scientists are
not. Henriikka Clarkeburn demonstrated that those trained in the sciences did not
demonstrate an increased moral sensitivity to socio-scientific moral issues compared to
comparably educated college students (Clarkeburn 2003). Yet, we routinely entrust our
scientists with perhaps the greatest moral issues of our time—the manipulation of the
human genome.
We can expect that the generation of scientists we are training will
have even greater complex moral dilemmas to confront. There is cause for concern
when one considers that these future scientists are derived from the same stock that
admitted to lying, cheating, and stealing but were okay with there own moral
development.
What is needed is a reconnection of ethics to the Big Picture. There are currently
two competing Big Picture systems that attempt to unify ethics to epistemology and
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ontology: Evolutionary Ethics and Natural Law. If we are serious about moving our
students from being ethical novices to experts we need to give some space to ethical
systems in our science curricula.
Thus far this paper has discussed how connecting curricular content to the Big
Picture of epistemology, ontology, and ethics can facilitate students’ conditionalizing of
new knowledge. This is the Big Picture of Philosophy, specifically the trivium of Plato:
the True, the Beautiful, and the Good. These are not esoteric concepts relevant only to
the ancient Academy of Athens or some Medieval Scholastic University. The research
and writings of St. Pierre, Din Yan Yip, Miller, Resnick, Sadler, and Budziszewski
(2006) all suggests True, the Beautiful, and the Good have relevance in today’s science
classroom. The question is, how can we take these seemingly complex Big Picture
concept and make them accessible and relevant to our students so that they actually help
them conditionalize what we teach them?
Teaching science and philosophy has given me the opportunity to interconnect
seemingly disparate fields. Inevitably, I drew from my knowledge of one domain to help
me to teach the other. I developed a concept map, A Model of the Human Atom, to help
my students (who had had me previously for biology and/or chemistry) understand the
similarities and differences between the various philosophical systems (realism,
nominalism, empiricism, rationalism, existentialism, etc.). They all told me that it helped
them understand philosophy, but what surprised me was that many of them told me that it
helped them with their literature, history, and even their science and math classes. I am
considering introducing the Human Atom model in my chemistry classes as a vehicle to
help students understand and appreciate that science is not isolated from other ways of
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knowing, being, or how we are to be. Rather, that it contributes to all these and must
likewise learn from the diversity of all human experience—even that which is nonmethodological in nature. It may also serve as the basis for a new class that we may be
introducing at the Reseda Science Magnet during the 2008-2009 school year; one that
will more directly address the issues discussed in this paper. What follows, therefore, is a
brief description of the model, which I am considering as a potential Action Research
proposal and the results of a survey conducted to measure student interest regarding these
issues.
The atom consists of a nucleus surrounded by orbitals and suborbitals which
contain pairs of electrons spinning in opposite directions. The Model of the Human Atom
proposes an analogous arrangement with the human nucleus surrounded by three
hexagonal orbitals: ontology, epistemology, and ethics. Each of these hexagonal orbitals
has six suborbitals that contain a pair of antinomies. The human nucleus remains
undefined in this model because it is highly personalistic in that it is shaped by the
individual’s faith, philosophy, and life-experiences. The illustration below shows an
overview of the model (go to www.csun.edu/~kdm78513 and click on the sun for more).
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In How Children Learn the NRC stressed the importance of metacognition in the
process by which experts conditionalize new knowledge within their Big Picture
frameworks (HPL, 2000 p.47). They further suggested that educators find ways to assist
students in this process: “Instruction that enables students to see models of how experts
organize and solve problems may be helpful.” (HPL, 2000 p.49). Sandra Kaplan (Kaplan
1997) has been an advocate for using “icons” to facilitate student integration of knew
knowledge into a comprehensible Big Picture. Gurian has suggested that boys process
symbolic information better than language based information which girls are more
success at processing (Gurian, 2001 p.49). Modified icons that incorporate both symbols
and words allow all students to readily apprehend the connection of knew knowledge to
the Big Picture. The following are a few selected icons to represent antinomies.
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Finally, there is the question as to whether students would be even interested in
such a holistic approach to learning science. Do they care about such esoteric themes as
aesthetics, criteria of truth, or the natural law versus evolutionary ethics? I recently
conducted an Internet survey of the student at Reseda Science Magnet pertaining to this
question. One hundred and nine students (approximately ¼th of the Magnet student body)
participated in the survey. The results are summarized below:
Agree
68.8
1. Believe that ethical issues should be discussed in science
class.
2. Believe that how science “knows” should be a more
82.6
significant part of science class.
3. Is interested in discussions that include the relationship
61.5
between science and religion.
4. Believe that learning aesthetics and ontology could be helpful
56
to their study of science.
5. Is interested in learning about how science and philosophy
85.3
can together help create a Big Picture.
6. Believe that such a Big Picture would help them learn
84.4
science.
7. Would be interested in taking a class dedicated to these
75.2
topics.
Click here for Complete Survey Result (pdf)
Disagree
14.7
No Opinion
16.5
6.4
11
19.2
19.3
18.4
25.7
6.4
8.3
6.4
8.3
11.1
13.8
The results clearly indicate that students are not only interested in such Big Picture topics
as Ontology, Epistemology, and Ethics but believe that it can help them learn science as
well.
Students can be overwhelmed with seemingly disparate factoids. There is ample
education research to suggest that students can move from novices to experts when they
can conditionalize these factoids into a comprehensible Big Picture. I have suggested
that this Big Picture should exceed specific subject domains to incorporate a conceptual
network of ontology, epistemology, and ethics. I have further proposed that the Model of
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the Human Atom along with metacognitive icons can facilitate the process by which
students can move from novice to “accomplished novice,” as the NRC observed:
A model that assumes that experts know all the answers is very
different from a model of the accomplished novice, who is proud
of his or her achievements and yet also realizes that there is
much more to learn. (NRC, 2000 p50)
Perhaps the most important thing that can happen for the student while conditionalizing
new knowledge to a Big Picture is the acquisition of the virtue of intellectual humility,
that awareness that regardless of the level of expertise acquired one always remains, at
best, an accomplished novice.
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Reference:
Augros, R. & Stanciu, G. (1984) The New Story of Science. Lake Bluff, Ill. Regnery
Gateway.
Budziszewski, J (2006) Lecture: Nature v Nature: Evolutionary Ethics Adds Nothing to
the Natural Law. Given at Thomas Aquinas College Nov. 10 2006
Clarkeburn, H. (2003) Measuring Ethical Development in Life Science Students: a study
using Perry’s developmental model. Studies in Higher Education Vol 28, No. 4
October, 2003 p. 444-456
Gurian, M. (2001) Boys and Girls Learn Differently. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
Josephson Institute (2006) Josephson Institute Report Card on the Ethics of American
Youth: Part One—Integrity Retrieved November 18, 2006 from
http://www.josephsoninstitute.org/reportcard/
Kaplan, S. (1997) Facilitating the Understanding of Depth and Complexity. Retrieved
December 2, 2006 from: www.texaspsp.org/all/DepthComplexity.pdf
Miller, A. (2006) A Thing of Beauty. New Scientist, Vol. 189, Issue 2537
National Research Council (2000). How People Learn (Expanded Ed) Washington D.C.
National Academy Press
Resnick, M., Berg, R. & Eisenberg, M. (2000) Beyond Black Boxes: Bringing
Transparency and Aesthetics Back to Scientific Investigation. The Journal of the
Learning Sciences, 9(1), 7- 30.
St. Pierre, E. (2006) Scientifically Based Research in Education: Epistemology and
Ethics. Adult Education Quarterly. Vol. 56 No. 4 pp. 239-266
Yip, Din Yap (2006) Integrating History with Scientific Investigations The Journal of
the Australian Science Teachers Association V 52 No 3 p26-29 Spring 2006