Introduction to the Special Issue

The development of conceptions of evolution is a problem of both great practical concern and important theoretical interest. Many Americans do not understand basic principles of evolution, such as natural selection, and part of the reason may be that these concepts are notoriously difficult to learn and to teach. The four contributions in this special issue all investigate the development of conceptions in evolution. Several of the articles focus on the interaction between children’s prior beliefs and their interpretation and cognitive construction of evolutionary concepts. For example, essentialist beliefs (e.g., Gelman, 2003) may affect how children understand and interpret natural selection and the evolution of species. The four articles all demonstrate that prior beliefs constrain and influence how children and adults interpret what they observe and are taught about evolution. Taken together, the articles demonstrate the importance of taking a developmental approach to understanding the development of conceptions of evolution

Children’s Learning from Touch Screens: A Dual Representation Perspective

Parents and educators often expect that children will learn from touch screen devices, such as during joint e-book reading. Therefore an essential question is whether young children understand that the touch screen can be a symbolic medium – that entities represented on the touch screen can refer to entities in the real world. Research on symbolic development suggests that symbolic understanding requires that children develop dual representational abilities, meaning children need to appreciate that a symbol is an object in itself (i.e., picture of a dog) while also being a representation of something else (i.e., the real dog). Drawing on classic research on symbols and new research on children’s learning from touch screens, we offer the perspective that children’s ability to learn from the touch screen as a symbolic medium depends on the effect of interactivity on children’s developing dual representational abilities. Although previous research on dual representation suggests the interactive nature of the touch screen might make it difficult for young children to use as a symbolic medium, the unique interactive affordances may help alleviate this difficulty. More research needs to investigate how the interactivity of the touch screen affects children’s ability to connect the symbols on the screen to the real world. Given the interactive nature of the touch screen, researchers and educators should consider both the affordances of the touch screen as well as young children’s cognitive abilities when assessing whether young children can learn from it as a symbolic medium

Tinkering With Testing:Understanding How Museum Program Design Advances Engineering Learning Opportunities for Children

Using a design-based research approach, we studied ways to advance opportunities for children and families to engage in engineering design practices in an informal educational setting. 213 families with 5–11-year-old children were observed as they visited a tinkering exhibit at a children’s museum during one of three iterations of a program posing an engineering design challenge. Children’s narrative reflections about their experience were recorded immediately after tinkering. Across iterations of the program, changes to the exhibit design and facilitation provided by museum staff corresponded to increased families’ engagement in key engineering practices. In the latter two cycles of the program, families engaged in the most testing, and in turn, redesigning. Further, in the latter cycles, the more children engaged in testing and retesting during tinkering, the more their narratives contained engineering-related content. The results advance understanding and the evidence base for educational practices that can promote engineering learning opportunities for children

It Works Both Ways: Transfer Difficulties between Manipulatives and Written Subtraction Solutions

Three experiments compared performance and transfer among children aged 83-94 months after written or manipulatives instruction on two-digit subtraction. In Experiment 1, all children completed the posttest in a written format, while in Experiment 2, all children took a posttest using manipulatives. Experiment 3 investigated how altered surface features of the blocks affected posttest performance, subtraction strategies and mathematical behaviors. In the first two experiments, children demonstrated performance gains when the posttest format was identical to the instructed format, but failed to demonstrate transfer from the instructed format to an incongruent posttest. Posttest performance in these two experiments provides evidence for bidirectional challenges in transfer between manipulatives and written instruction. In the third experiment, children who learned with standard, unaltered blocks more often used productive problem-solving strategies and engaged in mathematical behaviors significantly more often than children who used blocks with altered surface features. Flexibility and the need to provide explicit links between written and manipulatives instruction are discussed.Fil: David, Uttal H.. Northwestern University; Estados UnidosFil: Amaya, Meredith. Northwestern University; Estados UnidosFil: Maita, María del Rosario. Northwestern University; Estados Unidos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Rosario. Instituto Rosario de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Educación; ArgentinaFil: Liu Hand, Linda. Northwestern University; Estados Unidos. University of Iowa; Estados UnidosFil: Cohen, Cheryl. Northwestern University; Estados UnidosFil: O'Doherty, Katherine. Vanderbilt University; Estados UnidosFil: Deloache, Judy. University of Virginia; Estados Unido