Page 340 - Deep Learning

The Formation of Belief 323

The category shift theory implicitly presupposes conflict of a specific sort.
in a 2009 article, Chi and sarah K. Brem emphasized the role of contrast in
the triggering of a shift. The learner notices differences between some object,
76
event or phenomenon and the essential features of the ontological category
to which it is currently assigned. This weakens the link to that category and
presumably triggers the search for a category that provides a better fit. This is
a plausible theory, but once again we must ask how resistance is overcome. if
the learner notices differences and contrasts between an entity and its current
classification, why are they not handled through peripheral changes? A con-
trasting feature could trigger differentiation, the creation of a special case of
the relevant ontological category. For example, a student with a billiard-ball,
linear causal conception of gravitation as a one-way force of the earth upon
each individual object could respond to the statement that gravitation is a
mutual attraction by creating a special case of linear causation that includes
two separate but opposite causal effects, one strong and one weak, which is
not a step toward the concept of a gravitational field. in short, the notion of
a category shift does not in and of itself provide an explanation for why con-
trasting features do not trigger peripheral changes instead of the fundamental
re-classification envisioned in the ontological shift theory.

The Pedagogical Turn

The anomaly-accumulation view of theory change migrated into pedagogy via
the science classroom. A group of educators, including William A. Gertzog,
Peter W. Hewson, George J. Posner and Kenneth A. strike spelled out the
instructional implications of the anomaly-accumulation principle: students
must become dissatisfied with their prior, intuitive theory before they are
77
ready to acquire the theory that the science teacher intends to teach. This
can be accomplished by presenting them with a sequence of carefully designed
anomalies, arguments and laboratory demonstrations that reveal the flaws in
their resident misconceptions. For example, a student who believes that heavy
objects fall faster than lighter ones might be confronted with the anomaly of
equal acceleration in vacuum; a student who believes in the inheritance of
acquired characteristics should be asked whether the baby of body-building
parents will be born stronger than the babies of couch potatoes; and anybody
who believes that the seasons are due to the varying distance of the earth from
the sun should be reminded that when there is winter in one hemisphere, there
is summer in the other. such contradictions presumably create dissatisfaction