Volume 3 || Issue 6 - Nov. 2013 - English Developing Learners’ Ideas and Conclusions VS. Supplying their own! What Does Educator's Intense Disposition Suggest in Classroom Contexts? Developing Learners’ Ideas and Conclusions VS. Supplying their own! What Does Educator's Intense Disposition Suggest in Classroom Contexts? Rakesh Kumar Assistant Professor MV COLLEGE OF EDUCATION, University of Delhi. Abstract In teaching-learning science, developing viable models, theories and principles by conducting experiments and activities had been advocated for quite a long time. Arriving at the principles, theories and laws governing the natural and physical world, by the learners of science, that had been focussed by NCF (2005) too, is not possible if teachers’ force their own conclusions and ideas on learners. The current position of teaching-learning of science on the creation and importance of Alternative Frameworks among learners in science advocates that an educator's intense disposition towards supplying their own ideas may be problematic. The present study comprising feedback on 592 science lessons from 30 pre-service teachers studies their natural dispositions towards withholding own ideas and conclusions effectively among learners in science. The teachers agree that they ‘Withheld own ideas and conclusions effectively’ in their average dispositions. Further, analyses of these dispositions show that the range shows an extremely high difference between minimum and maximum value. The mean means most of teachers agree that they withheld own ideas and conclusions effectively. Skewness which is negative means the numbers of high scorers are more than the number of low scorers. Kurtosis shows that the distribution is leptokurtic. Key Words: Learners’ ideas, teachers’ ideas and conclusions, alternative frameworks, pre-service teachers Introduction: “One important human response to the wonder and awe of nature from the earliest times has been to observe the physical and biological environment carefully, look for any meaningful patterns and relations, make and use new tools to interact with nature, and build conceptual models to understand the world. This human endeavour has led to modern science. Broadly speaking, the scientific method involves several interconnected steps: observation, looking for regularities and patterns, making hypotheses, devising qualitative or mathematical models, deducing their consequences, verification or falsification of theories through observations and controlled experiments, thus arriving at the principles, theories and laws governing the natural world. The laws of science are never viewed as fixed eternal truths. Even the most established and universal laws of science are always regarded as provisional, subject to modification in the light of new observations, experiments and analyses” (National Council of Educational Research and Training, 2005). Though reasoning behind the easy ideas that children make, may not be as complex as a scientific attitude behind the observer cannot be challenged. “Some call these early ideas that children form as Alternative Frameworks; others label them naive conceptions, or alternative conceptions. Alternative Frameworks might also be referred to as preconceived notions, non-scientific beliefs, naive theories, mixed conceptions, or conceptual misunderstandings. Basically, in science these are cases in which something a person knows and believes does not match what is known to be scientifically correct. These terms identifying similar mismatches are used interchangeably in this study and are referred to as Alternative Frameworks” (Worth, 1999). Need and Significance: Alternative Frameworks have many serious concerns attached with their presence and something especially concerning about them is that we, at all stages of our development, continue to build further knowledge on our current understandings. This development of learning would be seriously impacted if there are Alternative Frameworks at their core (Black, 2006). [...] 22 of the 25 Harvard University faculty and graduating learners they interviewed -- including some with science majors -- had reverted to their childhood notions of the universe”. Karen Worth argues that “a child is not going to give up his theory made by so much effort and observations just because an adult disapproves it or a single event challenges it. Children do not want to give up the concepts and theories they work so hard to make. They take their experiences and struggle to come up with understandings that work in their daily lives. They are not about to drop their ideas just because someone says so, or because an event disproves what they have come to believe. As anyone familiar with the history of science can attest, even adults have trouble changing theories that are well grounded in experience. If a child's theory works, if it has been productive and the child has worked hard to build that theory, he/she will not give it up unless he/she has a lot of new experiences that provide reasons to do so” (Worth, 1999). Developing Learners’ Ideas and Conclusions VS. Supplying their own!... http://www.ijerei.com/index.php?view=article&catid=94:english&id=27... 1 of 4 12/25/2016 11:02 PM