Changes in existing conceptual structures are
difficult to achieve, because of their complexity and
of their counter-intuitive nature. Students are often
unaware of fundamental presuppositions that
constrain their understanding of scientific explanations
or take these presuppositions to be fundamental
truths about the physical world that cannot be
questioned (such as, for example, the belief that
space is organized in terms of the directions of “up”
an “down” or the belief that unsupported objects
fall down). An important goal of science instruction
is to make students aware of their ideas and beliefs
and also to make them understand that these beliefs
are not unique. Understanding that your beliefs
can be tested and sometimes that they can be
falsified, understanding how to use evidence to
evaluate a theory and how to revise a theory in light
of disconfirming evidence, are fundamental to understanding
science. The development of this
metaconceptual awareness in students is very much
related to the more general problem of creating
intentional and purposeful learners who can take
control of their own learning, know how to learn
and how to correct their mistakes.
Collaborative work leaves students open to strong
social influences that have the potential to “shake”
their convictions (by experiencing a variety of alternative
opinions), question their sense of understanding
(through social pressure when in the minority),
and create both contexts of conflict and
needs to reach agreement in order to stream operations.
Through all these experiences students
realize a multifaceted reality in which different
opinions can be reasonably supported and challenged
and where different forms of resolution have to be
tried out to achieve some result they can be proud
of. The use of computers has the additional advantage
of stabilizing information and opinions in a
written form and structuring communication so that
multiple discussions can be well organized (i.e. the
tree structure of the knowledge building area in
Synergeia). In this way, affordances for
metacognition created in a collaborative environment
can be taken full advantage of, allowing students
to think deeper on their own timing, and the
teacher to make appropriate comments either to
guide interaction or to provide the norms of the discipline
under study.