Abstracts - Earli

ignored the wider findings of teacher effectiveness research, which clearly identify a significant rolefor direct instruction. Fourthly, it is argued that constructivism has a weak research base, heavilyreliant on small-scale qualitative data and lacking randomised, controlled experiments. Finally, thepaper argues that the strong push for reforms based on constructivism has fuelled a public perceptionthat mathematics teaching is in decline due to the advent of ‘fuzzy’ maths.Epistemology is not equal to pedagogyPaul Kirschner, University of Utrecht, NetherlandsJust as a child is not a little adult, a learner is not a little scientist. Children’s concepts are differentin structure and meaning from adults. As such, how one best learns and should be taught in adomain is quite different from how one performs or “does” in a domain. The problem is thatbecause experimentation and discovery is central to how knowledge is acquired by scientists (i.e.,experts), many then feel that experimentation and discovery should also be used as the pedagogyfor acquiring knowledge, organising the curriculum, and designing the learning environment. Butthis is not the case, and it is naive to assume that a theory of education, teaching and/or learningcan be extracted directly from a philosophy of science. They are separate entities requiring vastlydifferent activities. Discovery presupposes a prior conceptual framework. By means of discoveryone can investigate relationships between concepts, but there is no guarantee that it will lead one tonew concepts. This depends upon the structure and content of existing knowledge. Constructivistteaching approaches fail to distinguish between the learner/novice and the doer/expert and thus todistinguish between teaching/learning a science and doing a science. The mistake lies in overlookingthat students are not experts and do not practice a science, but they are novices and are learningabout a science and/or learning to practise a science. It is the teacher’s job to teach science, teachabout science and teach how to do science. It is not the teacher’s job to practice science as part ofthe teaching exercise. This presentation discusses this educational anomaly.A 528 August 2007 15:00 - 17:00Room: -1.64SymposiumDeveloping potentials for mathematics learning throughmetacognitionChair: Anneke Vrugt, University Amsterdam, NetherlandsOrganiser: Anneke Vrugt, University Amsterdam, NetherlandsOrganiser: Annemie Desoete, Ugent & Arteveldehogeschool, BelgiumDiscussant: Patricia Alexander, University of Maryland, USAThis symposium is devoted to the relationship between metacognition and mathematical problemsolving skills. Despite all the emphasis on metacognition, researchers currently use differentconcepts for overlapping phenomena. The purpose of this contribution is to help to clarify some ofthe issues on the conceptualization, the assessment and the training of metacognition. Thissymposium focuses on the challenges and potentials of metacognition in mathematics. In a firstpresentation Panaoura and Demetriou analyse Self-representation in relation to mathematicalperformance and its impact on strategies pupils use in order to self-regulate their performance on– 16 –