Name: Jody Kittell

Article: LC1

Using the Learning Cycle to Teach Biology Concepts and Reasoning Patterns .

Lawson, Anton E., (2001). , Journal of Biological Education, 35, 165-169.

SUMMARY:

The learning cycle is a three-phase inquiry approach consisting of exploration, term introduction, and concept application. During exploration, students learn through their own actions and reactions as they explore new materials and ideas. Exploration should raise questions, complexities, or contradictions. The second phase includes the introduction of a new term or terms. The teacher, the textbook, a video, or another medium may introduce the terms. During concept application, students apply the new terms and/or reasoning patterns to additional contexts. Concept application is necessary to extend the range of applicability of new concepts and reasoning patterns. Applications aid the students whose conceptual reorganization takes place more slowly than average, or who did not adequately relate the teacher’s original explanation to their experiences. Concept learning depends in part on one’s ability to generate and test ideas and reject those that lead to contradictions. In this sense, concept learning can be characterized as ‘constructive,’ as new conceptual knowledge depends in part upon skill in generating and testing ideas. As one acquires skill in generating and testing ideas, concept ‘construction’ becomes easier

If students are simply told answers, they will not engage in the knowledge construction process, thus will not employ and improve their present reasoning skills. On the other hand, if instruction is more open-ended, then considerable opportunity exists for students to use and improve their reasoning skills while exploring nature and using If/then/Therefore reasoning to test their ideas and those of others. The necessary conditions for conceptual change to take place appear to be: (1) data inconsistent with prior concepts, (2) the availability of alternative conceptions/hypotheses/theories, and (3) sufficient time, motivation, and reasoning skill to compare the alternatives and their predicted consequences with the evidence. The answer to the question of how are theoretical concepts constructed is by identifying a previously constructed pattern from the world of familiar objects and events and borrowing it to explain unfamiliar objects and events.

Lessons that allow students to examine the adequacy of prior beliefs (conceptions) force them to argue about and test those beliefs. This provides the opportunity to construct more appropriate concepts and become increasingly skilled in the reasoning patterns used in concept construction.

REACTION:

This article in of itself was the perfect example of the type of thinking that encourages one to critically analyze the facts and make decisions based on those facts. I thought it gave a good explanation of what the learning cycle is and how it should be used. The examples that were provided really drove home the point of the article. The introduction posed a question about which procedure would be most effective in teaching a particular lesson. I read all four answers and picked one (which happened to be the wrong one). After I read the explanations of why a, b, and c were wrong, and why d was right, I began to understand what the intention of the learning cycle is. There was another example about how Darwin ‘changed his mind’ about the theory of special creation and came to develop his theory of natural selection. Based on his previous knowledge, he had certain beliefs, then with the acquisition of new facts, his assumptions changed and he developed new theories using if/then/therefore reasoning. The explicit use of the If/then/Therefore statement clarified even further the type of thinking and reasoning we, as teachers, wants to engage our student in. It is this type of thinking that needs to be generated in the assimilation of biology concepts.

I think that independent exploration makes the understanding of biology concepts easier because the students will retain the information better because of the investigative process they performed in finding the answers on their own. I know from my own work experience that learning new complex information was so much clearer when I had a point of reference from which to recall certain details, in my case it was in the form of case report forms. I think this is most prevalent for high school students in using case studies to explore particular topics, such as osteoporosis, with the teacher providing some guiding questions to help in their exploration. This article, along with observing my cooperating teacher, reinforces the fact that students need to think independently and they need to satisfy their own curiosity by exploring concepts on their own.