Announcement

Students’ conceptions in science:
Investigating ideas, activities and interactions
Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey
August 31, 2009
8:00 AM – 2:30 PM

Science education researchers throughout the world continue to find students’ conceptions in science a fruitful field of investigation. This interactive symposium offers doctoral students and experienced researchers alike the opportunity to learn from recent developments related to theoretical, methodological and practical challenges in investigating and reporting studies of students’ conceptions. Dr. Peter Hewson, University of Wisconsin Madison (USA), will give the keynote address on three themes that run through this research: students’ ideas, instructional activities that support metacognitive and metaconceptual learning and interactions among the student, instructor and researcher. This symposium is free but limited to 60 participants who register by August 1, 2009. The language of the symposium will be English.

Participants in this symposium will have the opportunity to interact with presenters in two of four small group sessions that include:

•    developments and key challenges to research on students conceptions
•    the role of representations in learning science
•    cognitive and metacognitive approaches to teaching for understanding
•    epistemic foundations for conceptual change learning

Presenters for the symposium include: Esra Akgul, Maria Pilar Jiménez-Aleixandre, Michael Beeth, Reinders Duit, Richard Duschl, Sister Gertrude Hennessey, Vaughan Prain, David Treagust, Russell Tytler, Nejla Yuruk and many others conducting research on students’ conceptions in science.

The deadline to apply to this symposium is August 1, 2009

The University of Wisconsin Oshkosh (USA) and Yeditepe University (Turkey)
have provided financial support for this symposium.