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CHILDREN’S ALTERNATIVE FRAMEWORK ABOUT MATTER

Previously it was considered that children’s mind is devoid of any ideas and it is just like a white paper. John Lock says that mind of child is like a “blank slate” (web source). But after advancement in knowledge it came to evident that children possess prior ideas about the material world. The task of teacher is to explore the ideas and plan their teaching accordingly. I came to interact with this idea after joining Aga Khan University Institute for Educational Development (AKU-IED). I came to know that these prior ideas in student mind are called alternative frame work. We also assigned the task to inquire about the alternative frame work of children in a desired topic. This paper discusses general statement of the topic, review of the related literature, discussion on the interview questions and summary of children responses, with analyze of the responses along with implication of the findings.

The topic me and my partner select for the elicitation of children ideas was matter and states of matter with fifth class in a private school. The reason behind that, there is lot of confusion in student’s mind regarding matter. “Some student’s may, in fact see matter as being composed initially of hard and soft substances, and that solids are a subset of hard substances” (Skamp, 1998, p.241 ) Furthermore, there is a daily interaction of student with the topic for example, they take tea and in this case the cup is solid and tea is a liquid. Hence, it is a familiar topic for student. In addition, the topic of matter is a basic of science because the whole scientific ideas are revolving round the matter. Moreover, children respond confidently about any thing or topic in case of their familiarity and acquaintance.

Different methods have been developed to elicit children ideas about the topic. These methods have some similarities and differences, (White, 1979). We used two methods, interview about instances and about event to explore alternative frame work of children’s. Furthermore, with interview we had different materials regarding our topic such as some solid, liquid, and gas. We began our interview by asking children to classify the thing in their surrounding. Most of the student replied that the thing in our surrounding are called matter and then they further classified matter in to three forms solid, liquid and gas. In addition, we asked our prepared questions and then probed children ideas making questions at the spot according to children responses. They responded more clearly when get interact with the material that we had prepared for them.

We were give nine student of fifth class and we took them in the school courtyard. We selected the courtyard because the environment was in our favor regarding our task. The student’s were worried about what we are going to do but they become happy when we told them that we are here to interview you as a future scientist’s. They became more frank after formal discussion about their interests and hobbies. When we inquired about the things in the surrounding they classified them into plant, grasses and etc. With further inquiry they said that these things are called matter. They replied satisfactorily and scientifically that there are four states of matter. Seven out of nine students replied that solid has a definite shape, volume and color. In case of liquid the only definition in their mind was that it can flow very fast replied eight out of nine. When we show the flow of powdered chalk in the bottle and said that it also flow but you categorized it as solid, they promptly replied that some solid can also flow. When inquired about gas the majority of students seven out of nine replied that it has no weight, it can fly we can not see it but can feel it and has no color. Two out of nine students replied that it has definite shape and volume. When asked about what is present inside the air fresher two out of nine replied gas, four replied liquid and three replied mixture of gas and liquid. Hence, the ideas about matter in children mind were some scientific and others were their own ideas or alternative framework.

As a science teacher it is imperative to know children’s ideas about science because one has to construct new ideas on the basis of prior ideas. Driver (1983) pointed out the same fact when he says, “In teaching science it is important in designing teaching programmes to take in to account both children’s own ideas and those of the scientific community” (p.3). Without knowing prior conception effective teaching is difficult and can not be meaningful revealed to me after interaction with literature. Having this conception in our mind we visited school to know what is in the mind of children about matter. The first and most important thing I noticed was that children’s were quite confident about their own beliefs and ideas as authentic. Some ideas were mislead by due to linguistic error. Language plays a vital role in children’s life regarding cognitive point of view for all subject generally and particularly for science. Fensham (1988) says, “Language is an important factor in cognition” (p.151). We came to realize the fact from the evidence of response of the children that powdered form of solid can also flow like liquid. The only definition the children associated with liquid was that it can flow and when we show them the powdered form of solid flowing they replied that some solid can also flow. It seems that the children’s were not differentiating between the word flow and pour. The concept of flow in their mind regarding liquid was perhaps an association of flow with water resulting experiences from daily life and electronic media like television and internet. They responded about solid as hard and soft on the basis of their routine daily experiences of the objects mostly by touching and some were perhaps memorized the word spoken by teacher in the classroom while teaching. On the other hand they replied that solids are soft due to presence of air inside on the basis of their sense of touch. Moreover, they try to associate each scientific concept on the basis of their daily experiences and material around them. They only gas about which children knew was air composed of oxygen gas. This concept may come in to their mind through lessons of biology where oxygen is associated with life having their presence in the air around. In addition, it is a common explanatory point regarding gas in the school that gases can only be felt but not seen and example is given that of blowing air. Children’s mostly associate weight with visible and tangible things, hence they replied that gases possess no weight. From the above mentioned ideas of children about states of matter I came to realize that in school only text book is taught in the classroom. The examples are given to the children from daily life vaguely without relating them with current scientific ideas. The student’s ideas are not probed before introduction of any new topic.

I came to know about alternative framework after joining science classes in AKU-IED and will apply the technique in my own context because it is a base for science teaching. In science children’s own ideas provide a raw material to explain any scientific theory and help the science teacher to teach a topic (Driver, 1983, p.77). In inquiry based teaching there is no much need of content but the focus is laid on children’s own understanding of the world (Esler & Esler, 1996). I was a type of science teacher wanted to transform scientific knowledge to my students and for me it was not necessary to know children’s ideas. Furthermore, I wanted to develop their ideas on the basis of my ideas and understanding. But now I came to realize that the role of science teacher is not transformation of ideas but facilitation for development of ideas. The role of a science teacher should be a mediator between pupils experience and understanding and scientific community (Driver, 1983, p.84). Hence, I will plan my teaching strategies according to the needs of the students.

In conclusion science teaching should be based on inquiry rather than transforming of knowledge. For best result and conceptual understanding of student’s teaching activities should be based on student’s prior ideas.

Assadullah Khan
Student M.Ed 2009
Aga Khan University Institute for Educational Development Karachi