From the NGSS, these core
ideas for K-12 science instruction feature prominently in Nersessian:
1.
Have broad
importance across multiple sciences or engineering disci-plines or be a key
organizing principle of a single discipline.
2.
Provide a key
tool for understanding or investigating more complex ideas and solving
problems.
3.
Relate to the
interests and life experiences of students or be connected to societal or
personal concerns that require scientific or technological knowledge.
4.
Be teachable and
learnable over multiple grades at increasing levels of depth and
sophistication. That is, the idea can be made accessible to younger students
but is broad enough to sustain continued investigation over years.
Nersessian wants conceptual innovation to transfer
across time periods and methods of analysis because that is how it has been
changing and advancing in present-day science.
I believe that diSessa’s ideas about computational literacy fit into
this idea of transferability extremely well.
DiSessa asks us to assume that the future of computer programming will
be accessible to learn for elementary-aged students. He also emphasizes how programming, and his
tick model, is the best way for students to learn about motion. To him, the inferences students would learn
from algebra and calculus are not enough because they are not synthetic, one
cannot “experience” it. I think on this
point and a few others, my beliefs are in contention with diSessa because
learning the basics of algebra and calculus are how students would begin to
even understand what the computer is even synthesizing for them in the first
place. Maybe I do not “get it” because I
learned the “old-fashioned” way, and maybe my understanding of motion would be
far superior had I learned it via programming and the tick method. I feel like this is an important consideration
that diSessa has glossed over, but I do not think anybody could know for
certain which method is best.
I didn't read diSessa's piece as saying that programming was better than algebra and calculus for learning about motion, or that algebra and calculus aren't enough for understanding motion. When I read his piece, I found myself thinking about the affordances and constraints of each literacy, and I think that diSessa is positioning programming as a literacy with the affordances of accessibility, concreteness, and experience, but by doing so he is not necessarily de-valuing the work done by Galileo or Newton and Leibniz. Each new literacy layers over earlier ones. So, students don't need to understand the algebra or calculus the computer is synthesizing as they program a model, they can construct that knowledge for themselves in the process.
ReplyDeleteJenna,
ReplyDeleteI understand that diSessa was only trying to highlight the affordances of children being able to actually see the modeling of motion with computer programing but I think understanding the algebra or calculus behind that programming is invaluable. I know that I am biased on this matter for some reason, but I feel it is akin to teachers deciding not to teach the basics of English grammar or pronunciation rules to children just because they will be using computers and therefore have a word processor that will do spell/grammar checks for them. I think of algebra and calculus as a tool scientists need to use in order to explain so many other phenomena that the point is moot even if children could just teach themselves this single concept by working through a program.