The Development of Pattern Knowledge in Response to Instruction

• In Event: Poster Session 6
  In Poster Session: Curriculum and Instruction in the Science Classroom

Abstract

The Next Generation Science Standards charge U.S. teachers with the task of including patterns, as a crosscutting concept, in their science curricula. This study explores the learning of 8th grade students in response to a pattern-based curriculum. Patterns are here defined as general behaviors or processes that can be found in a range of phenomena; examples include threshold, equilibration, exponential growth, and oscillation. The study investigates the development of students’ conceptions of two of these patterns - threshold and equilibration - in response to a particular model of constructivist instruction. Findings show students’ conceptions increase in sophistication over the course of instruction and that the connection between this development and instruction is statistically significant.

Author

• Hillary Lucille Swanson, Northwestern University