COGNITIVE
ACCELERATION, SCIENTIFIC REASONING, and the Lawson CLASSROOM TEST OF SCIENTIFIC
REASONING (CTSR)
Michael Shayer
and Philip Adey developed an approach to education, ÒCognitive Acceleration
(CA),Ó that stimulates development of reasoning ability.
COGNITIVE
ACCELERATION RESOURCES
recommended for high school and college science teachers by Nathan Moore,
Assoc. Professor of Physics at Winona State University, in 2013:
1) Download Shayer and AdeyÕs Curriculum
Analysis Taxonomies
of reasoning at
http://modeling.asu.edu/modeling/AdeyP-CurrAnalysisTaxonomy.pdf
15 scientific
and mathematical skills in Piagetian categories, mapping to the
concrete/transitional/formal reasoning progression.
The two taxonomies
are: (a) psychological characteristics of children's thinking, such as use of
models, types of categorization, relationships, and investigation style, (b)
children's responses to problem types: conservation, control of variables,
proportionality, probabilistic thinking, correlational reasoning, mathematical
operations, measurement skills, etc.
The Curriculum
Analysis Taxonomies
(CAT) are included in training materials for Thinking Science (CASE). A month before he passed away
(in January, 2013), Philip Adey gave Nathan Moore permission to distribute the
taxonomy freely. ÒSpread the CAT as widely as you like!Ó he said in an e-mail.
CAT is published in Shayer and AdeyÕs outstanding book, ÒTowards a Science
of Science Teaching,Ó
(out of print, but available used).
2) This 5-page
overview & references by Nathan Moore (2013):
http://course1.winona.edu/nmoore/reasoning_ability_CASE.pdf
3) An excellent summary of Shayer &
AdeyÕs work: the 20-page book
chapter, The Effects of Cognitive Acceleration – and speculation about
causes of these effects,
by Philip Adey and Michael Shayer, King's College, London (2011).
The authors
describe three core principles of cognitive acceleration: cognitive conflict,
social construction of knowledge, and metacognition.
4) Nathan Moore
uses Cognitive Acceleration materials in his course for pre-service teachers at
Winona State University. His results are summarized in Using Cognitive
Acceleration Materials to Develop Pre-Service TeachersÕ Reasoning and
Pedagogical Expertise (2012),
by Nathan Moore, Jacqueline O'Donnell, and Dennis Poirier. Download at
http://asq.org/qic/display-item/index.html?item=34852
5) Read about
John DemingÕs work in student reasoning ability in high school chemistry at https://sites.google.com/site/wsuinquiryinstruction/home
His Frameworks
for Inquiry program has
success in high school, & in college chemistry with underprepared students.
Download an instructional unit for inspection: http://inquirychemistry.com/MTHSCP.html
(Click on materials). Nathan Moore wrote, ÒCracolicie and Deming were very
intentional about mapping the chemistry content to reasoning abilities that the
CTSR measures. I've used the
materials with freshman college students and found them to be quite effective.Ó
MORE
RESOURCES on Cognitive Acceleration in Science (CASE):
Download
articles at the Cognitive Acceleration website:
http://www.cognitiveacceleration.co.uk/ca_approach/research_and_reading.html
CASE: Questions
and answers; weblinks:
Cognitive
Acceleration through Science Education (CASE)
CASEÕs influence
on gains in thinking skills: examples (Winona State University teacher
training; high schools & lower grades) http://www.letsthink.org.uk/case-studiesrs
Shayer-Adey CASE
project (archived by the British Library Archiving Team)
The GTC website
in general:
http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/target/51183616/
CLASSROOM
TEST OF SCIENTIFIC REASONING (CTSR)
by Anton Lawson, Emeritus Professor of Life Sciences at Arizona State University
in 2013. See
http://modeling.asu.edu/modeling/weblinks.html
for versions & resources. As a start:
Request the CTSR
at https://sites.google.com/site/wsuinquiryinstruction/home/request-ctsr
Or download a
password-protected version of the CTSR at either of these locations: http://modelinginstruction.org/researchers/evaluation-instruments/
http://modeling.asu.edu/modeling/weblinks.html
in the section on assessments.
Ask
jane.jackson@asu.edu for the password to open it.
See graphs of
national norms at each grade (7 to
12) for the CTSR at https://sites.google.com/site/wsuinquiryinstruction/home/thinking-skills-national-norms
or in Jacqueline
OÕDonnellÕs MasterÕs thesis, which you can download at
http://modeling.asu.edu/modeling/weblinks.html
in the section on assessments.
Submit your
studentsÕ CTSR data at https://sites.google.com/site/wsuinquiryinstruction/home/ctsr-data-entry-form
or at http://goo.gl/xzKBd