Biomedical Engineering Topics in High School Science Instruction: Initial Development and Field Studies

摘要

The growth of the influence of cognitive science on the design of instructional materials in science and mathematics has been substantial over the past twenty years. Early works such as Bransford, Sherwood, Vye and Reiser summarized research on teaching thinking and problem solving pointing out important differences between the organization of knowledge by experts versus novices in classical problem solving domains such as chess as well as in physics. Another important area highlighted by Bransford, et al. was the experimental evidence that while students may have acquired knowledge in previous learning it is not always accessed when needed. This inability to access applicable knowledge in a wide variety of domains was mentioned as early as Whitehead who used the term "inert knowledge" to describe this type of knowledge. Additional work seemed to indicate that traditional educational methods tended to produce knowledge that remained inert. These concerns led researchers to propose alternative instructional methods that attempted to create macro-contexts for students in order that knowledge learned might be used in new settings rather than remaining inert. Studies in science as well as mathematics and literacy pointed towards the effectiveness of such instructional designs. This also led the researchers to jointly propose a name for this general type of instructional design, "Anchored Instruction". As noted in Bransford, "The model [Anchored Instruction] is designed to help students develop useful knowledge rather than inert knowledge. At the heart of the model is an emphasis on the importance of creating an anchor of focus that generates interest and enables students to identify and define problems and to pay attention to their own perception and comprehension of these problems." (p. 123).