Call for Papers
Members of AAAS and its affiliated societies, students, teachers and other scientists are encouraged to participate in the annual meeting and present papers and/or posters. Persons wishing to present a paper or poster at one of the sessions should e-mail the title, abstract and other requested information (see instructions below) to aaaspd@sou.edu. The deadline for submission is May 3, 2002. Your abstract will be sent to the appropriate program coordinator for review and acceptance. Students should identify themselves so that judges will be able to evaluate their presentations for awards of excellence.
Please format your submission as follows:
Line 1: Your name
Line 2: Name of presenter (if different from Line 1)
Line 3: Your telephone number and e-mail address
Line 4: Society section or symposium to which you are submitting your paper/poster
Line 5: Indicate whether the presentation is oral or poster
Line 6: Special equipment needs (other than 35 mm. and overhead projectors)
Line 7: Indicate whether the presenter is a student or not
Line 8: Paper title in title case (i.e. Paper Title in Title Case)
Author(s) name(s) in all caps and bold
Full address(es), including institution, street address, city, state, and zip code
Email address
Line 9: Leave blank
Line 10: Text of abstract. Limit: 250 words
Example of properly formatted abstract (lines 8 - 10)
Advanced Knowledge Acquisition in Elementary Biology. KATHLEEN M. FISHER and STACY GOMES (Center for Research in Mathematics and Science Education, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92120).
Advanced knowledge acquisition differs in important ways from introductory learning. Advanced knowledge acquisition refers to learning a content area beyond the introductory stage but before extensive experience and practice (Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich, and Anderson, 1988). At this stage, knowledge must be reasonably correct and active rather than inert. The goals of learning shift from knowledge reproduction to knowledge use. Advanced students need to become more comfortable with learning in different ways, more adaptive in using and applying knowledge, and more inclined to spontaneously restructure their knowledge. These advanced students are preparing themselves to leave school and enter practice in the workplace. They need to attain a deeper understanding of content material; reason with it; and apply it flexibly in diverse contents (Spiro, et al, 1988, p 375). They need to shift from being passive receivers of information to active organizers and users of their knowledge. In teaching biology to prospective elementary school teachers in their senior undergraduate year, we use a variety of strategies to achieve these ends, including: 1. stimulating curiosity and eliciting prior knowledge; 2. prompting students to build runnable mental models through prediction & interpretation; 3. promoting conceptual change by prompting 3a) cognitive disequilibrium and 3b) knowledge elaboration and by presenting 3c) ill-structured cases and 3d) knowledge construction activities; 4. promoting students' active learning; 5. providing scaffolding and support for student knowledge construction; 6. diagnosing & remediating underdeveloped cognitive and metacognitive skills; 7. prompting students to identify central ideas; 8. prompting students to integrate ideas; 9. avoiding oversimplification and overregulation; 10. prompting students to construct multiple representations; 11. building confidence and teamwork; and 12. evaluation for meaningful understanding. Two aspects which will be emphasized here are the use of SemNet¨ software to help students develop the skills and habits of meaningful knowledge organization and the use of two-tiered multiple choice questions to assess conceptual understanding.
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