Abstracts - Earli

used physically in the situation. Finally, the analyses show the ambiguity of disagreements. On theone hand, the disagreement seems to convey students into giving increasingly complex andaccurate accounts, but on the other hand the students get stalled in a one-dimensional right orwrong situation. Our findings are discussed in relation to how disagreements and conflicts can beproductive in learning activities.Implementing embedded assessment to identify student’s misconceptions in scienceYaron Doppelt, University of Pittsburgh, LRDC, IsraelChristian D. Schunn, University of Pittsburgh, LRDC, USAEli M. Silk, University of Pittsburgh. LRDC, USAThe education system’s purpose is to advance pupils to better academic achievements. But, it israre to find a teacher claiming that the ideal outcome of learning is 100% of success in the tests. Inthis research we present the implementation of embedded assessment aimed at identifyingmisconceptions. The assessment’s items were selected from the literature which is dealing withmisconception in science. The instrument was tested with 1324 pupils who studied with 19teachers in 15 middle-schools in a public school system of a mid-sized city. The 19 teachers haveparticipated in a 5 workshops. Each workshop lasted five hours. The workshops were distributedwhile the teachers have implemented the learning module in their classes. Teachers were engagedin an active learning process similar to the process their pupils were going to experience. Teachers,researchers, and teachers’ leaders from the school districts have collaborated and shared ideas inorder to create a community of learners. Creating a community of learners created a learningenvironment which allowed teachers to share their experiences with other teachers and to discusscontent knowledge as well as pedagogical content knowledge. All the workshops were videotapedand the researchers preformed 220 hours of observation in the classrooms during each of the twoyears of the module’s implementation. The teachers adopted the developed tool for assessing theirpupils’ achievements. Four characteristics were found to be effective for teachers’ in-servicetraining. The PD in this study created a learning community which included teachers, teachers’leaders, and researchers. Distributing the workshops over the implementation’s period enabled thecommunity to analyze case studies that teachers brought from their actual classroom’senvironments. These analyses contributed to a deep learning process that teachers haveexperienced. Especially the teachers’ content knowledge in science and pedagogical contentknowledge was enhanced.Learning about time through multiple environments and according multiple epistemological andpedagogical perspectivesKaterina Plakitsi, University of Ioannina, GreeceVasilis Kokkotas, University of Athens, GreecePanagiotis Piliouras, University of Athens, GreeceContemporary science and culture both challenge the monothematic approach of epistemology andpedagogy of positivistic empiricism and functionalistic formalism. If we follow the approach ofPolanyi about tacit knowledge, we will admit that articulated thought involves mechanisms ofirrational unpredictable elaboration (Polanyi 2002). On the other hand learning is accomplishedthrough the exchange of semiotic systems and communication in informal and figurative language(involves socialized humanity and its culture). As we have also tried to prove reason is not aclosed system of rules but consists in the autonomous self-examination of reflexion (Plakitsi,Kokkotas 2003), whose substantiation does not consists in self-proved rules but, as Willke writes,in thematization (Willke 1996). (This in turn posits the interdisciplinary aspect of learning) In the– 325 –