Those who dislike long posts (14 kB), references, cross-posting, or who have no interest in Piaget are urged to hit the DELETE button.

In response to my post "Has Piaget Gone Down For the Long Count?" [Hake (2005a)], Barbara Millis, in her POD post of 5 Sep 2005 titled "Piaget? - Other Sources" wrote [bracketed by lines "MMMMMMMM. . .; my inserts at ". . .[ . . . ]. . . "

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I would recommend that anyone wanting to keep up with the latest research on K-12 teaching and learning (with strong implications for those of us in higher education) invest in Bransford, et al. . . .[2000]. . ., "How Students Learn" and a follow-up volume on "How Students Learn: History, Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom.". . .[ Donovan & Bransford (2005)]. . . Both research-based books contain a wealth of classroom-based experiences useful for K-12 and university professors. I am finishing a review of the latter book for the "National Teaching and Learning Forum (NTLF). . . [<http://www.ntlf.com/>]. My key frustration is distilling 615 pages of pure "gold" into an 800-word review
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In my opinion Donovan & Bransford (2005) (D&B) is at most 18-karat gold, since a search of the book at <http://books.nap.edu/catalog/10126.html> for "physics" shows that the editors and the "Committee On How People Learn" appear to be oblivious of physics education research and development DONE BY PHYSICISTS other than Andrea diSessa (1982), Jim Minstrell, and Pam Kraus. The latter two authored D&B's Chapter 11 "Guided Inquiry in the Science Classroom." In particular, D&B appear to ignore (a) most of the extensive guided-inquiry research and development referenced in McDermott & Redish (1999), and (b) the landmark work of Halloun & Hestenes (1985a,b), which demonstrated how student *higher-level* learning can be *directly* measured and which has contributed substantially to the improvement of physics instruction in grades 9-16.

However, to their credit D&B include:

(a) references to Piagetian instruction [Kalchman (2001), Wollman (1977), Wollman & Lawson (1977)], even despite the fact that Kieran Egan, author of "Getting it Wrong from the Beginning: Our progressivist inheritance from Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget," is on the "Committee for How Students Learn."

(b) a nice story in Chapter 13 that helps students understand number-system place value, taken from Kieran Egan's (1998) book "Teaching as Story Telling."

Barbara Millis wrote: "I would recommend that anyone wanting to keep up with the latest research on K-12 teaching and learning (with strong implications for those of us in higher education) invest in [Bransford, et al. [2000] and Donovan & Bransford (2005)].

A facet of the implications for higher education that's seemingly ignored by most university faculty was emphasized 29 years ago by Arons & Karplus (1976), who wrote [my **emphasis**]:

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If our suggested inference is correct [that only 1/3 of college freshman have arrived at what Piaget. . . [see, e.g. Inhelder & Piaget (1958), Inhelder et al. (1987)]. . . called the "formal operational" level], it seems to us that **explicit awareness of the problem and measures to attack it, must begin in the colleges and universities. These institutions educate the teachers for the educational system with which we are concerned.** They must provide leadership in converting it from a passive one that merely allows "sui generis" development of a small fraction to one that actively assists the intellectual development of the far larger proportion of the population that we have every reason to believe is fully capable of abstract logical reasoning.
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Richard Hake, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Indiana University
24245 Hatteras Street, Woodland Hills, CA 91367
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>
<http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~sdi>


REFERENCES
Arons, A.B. & R. Karplus. 1976. "Implications of Accumulating Data on Levels of Intellectual Development," Am. J. Phys. 44: 396. Reprinted Fuller (2002). See also McKinnon & Renner (1971). For a discussion of Arons's concern with intellectual development see Hake (2004).

Bransford, J.D., A.L. Brown, R.R. Cocking, eds. 2000. "How people learn: brain, mind, experience, and school." Nat. Acad. Press; online at <http://books.nap.edu/books/0309070368/html/index.html>. This is
an update of the earlier 1999 edition.

diSessa, A. 1982. "Unlearning Aristotelian physics: A study of knowledge-based learning." Cognitive Science 6(2): 37-75.

Donovan, S.M. & J.D. Bransford, eds. 2005. "How Students Learn History, Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom." Nat. Acad. Press; online at <http://books.nap.edu/catalog/10126.html>.

Egan, K. 1989. "Teaching as story telling." University of Chicago Press. For Egan's homepage presentation of the introduction see <http://www.educ.sfu.ca/kegan/TaST.html>. Egan, K. 2004. "Getting it Wrong from the Beginning: Our progressivist inheritance from Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget." Yale University Press. For Egan's homepage presentation of the introduction and reviews see <http://www.educ.sfu.ca/kegan/wrongindex.html>, and the discussion in Hake (2005c).

Fuller, R.G., ed. 2002. "A Love of Discovery: Science Education - The Second Career of Robert Karplus." Kluwer. This is a valuable resource containing seminal papers of Karplus and his colleagues.

Hake, R.R. 2004. "The Arons Advocated Method," submitted to the "American Journal of Physics" on 24 April 2004; online as reference 31 at <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake>, or download directly as a 144 kB pdf by clicking on <http://www.physics.indiana.edu/~hake/AronsAdvMeth-8.pdf>.

Hake, R.R. 2005a. "Has Piaget Gone Down For the Long Count? (was Piaget)" online at <http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0509&L=pod&O=A&P=2834>. Post of 5 Sep 2005 08:30:25-0700 to AERA-D, AERA-G, AERA-GSL, AERA-H,
AERA-I, AERA-J, AERA-K, AERA-L, AP-Physics, ASSESS, Biolab, Biopi-L,
Chemed-L, Dewey-L, Dr-Ed, EvalTalk, Math-Learn, Phys-L, Physhare, PhysLrnR, POD, STLHE-L, TeachingEdPsych, and TIPS. I quote the comments on Piaget of seven modern-day experts - educator Philip Adey; cognitive scientists John Anderson, Howard Gardner, & Robert Sternberg; computer pioneer Alan Kay; biologist Anton Lawson; and philosopher Ernst von Glasersfeld. I state: "it would appear that . . . far from being 'down for the long count,' Piaget's work is still justifiably influential among cognitive scientists and scholars in several disciplines, e.g., biology, education, philosophy, and physics."

Hake, R.R. 2005b. "Re: Has Piaget Gone Down For the Long Count?" online at <http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0509&L=pod&O=A&P=4932>. Post of 7 Sep 2005 14:37:13 -0700 to AERA-D, AERA-G, AERA-GSL, AERA-H, AERA-I, AERA-J, AERA-K, AERA-L, AP-Physics, ASSESS, Biolab, Biopi-L, Chemed-L, EvalTalk, Phys-L, Physhare, PhysLrnR, POD, STLHE-L, TeachingEdPsych, and TIPS. The abstract reads: "It is argued that the misidentification of the Socrates of Plato's Meno with the true historical Socrates as researched by Gregory Vlastos is probably a factor in the sad neglect by teachers of effective Socratic pedagogy."

Hake, R.R. 2005c. "Piaget & Dewey: Down for the Count?" online at <http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0509&L=pod&O=D&P=7030>. Post of 8 Sep 2005 17:33:4-0700 to AERA-D, AERA-G, AERA-GSL, AERA-H, AERA-I, AERA-J, AERA-K, AERA-L, AP-Physics, ASSESS, Biolab, Biopi-L, Chemed-L, Dewey-L, Dr-Ed, EvalTalk, Math-Learn, Phys-L, Physhare, PhysLrnR, POD, STLHE-L, TeachingEdPsych, and TIPS. See also the earlier posts [Hake (2005a,b)] that preceded this post. The abstract reads: I argue that the criticism of Piaget by Catherine Scott in a recent AERA-D post is problematic, and close with three questions: (1) Does Kieran Egan ("Getting it Wrong from the Beginning: Our progressivist inheritance from Herbert Spencer, John Dewey, and Jean Piaget") or anyone else give any solid evidence for such criticism?; (2) Would anyone, care to comment on Kieran Egan's opinion that (a) both Dewey and Piaget were "wrong from the start," and (b) heavily influenced by Herbert Spencer?" ;(3) If Dewey was and is WRONG, why is Dewey-like pedagogy so seemingly successful in introductory physics education?

Halloun, I. & D. Hestenes. 1985a. "The initial knowledge state of college physics students." Am. J. Phys. 53:1043-1055; online at <http://modeling.asu.edu/R&E/Research.html>. Contains the "Mechanics Diagnostic" test, precursor to the "Force Concept Inventory."

Halloun, I. & D. Hestenes. 1985b. "Common sense concepts about motion." Am.
J. Phys. 53:1056-1065; online at <http://modeling.asu.edu/R&E/Research.html>."

Inhelder, B. & J. Piaget. 1958. "Growth of logical thinking from childhood to adolescence: an essay on the construction of formal operational structures." Basic Books.

Inhelder, B., D. de Caprona, and A. Cornu-Wells, eds. 1987. "Piaget Today." Erlbaum.

Kalchman, M. 2001. "Using a neo-Piagetian framework for learning and teaching mathematical functions." Doctoral Dissertation, University of Toronto.

McDermott, L.C. & E.F. Redish. 1999. RL-PER1: Resource letter on physics education research. Am. J. Phys. 67(9):755-767; online at
<http://www.physics.umd.edu/rgroups/ripe/perg/cpt.html>.

McKinnon, J.W. & J.W. Renner. 1971. "Are colleges concerned with intellectual
development?" Am. J. Phys. 39: 1047-1052.

Millis B, 2005. "Piaget? - Other Sources," POD post of 5 Sep 2005
19:02:34-0700; online at
<http://listserv.nd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0509&L=pod&P=R3149&I=-3>.

Wollman, W. 1977. "Controlling variables: A neo-Piagetian developmental sequence," Science Education 61: 385-391.

Wollman, W., and A. Lawson, A. 1977. "Teaching the procedure of controlled experimentation: A Piagetian approach," Science Education 61: 57-70.


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