The language of science has many words and phrases whose meaning either changes in differing contexts or alters to reflect developments in a given discipline. This book presents the authors’ theories on using ‘conceptual profiles’ to make the teaching of context-dependent meanings more effective. Developed over two decades, their theory begins with a recognition of the coexistence in the students’ discourse of those alternative meanings, even in the case of scientific concepts such as molecule, where the dissonance between the classical and modern views of the same phenomenon is an accepted norm. What began as an alternative model of conceptual change has evolved to incorporate a sociocultural approach, by drawing on ideas such as situated cognition and Vygotsky’s influential concept of culturally located learning. Also informed by pragmatist philosophy, the approach has grown into a well-rounded theory of teaching and learning scientific concepts. The authors have taken the opportunity in this book to develop their ideas further, anticipate and respond to criticisms—that of relativism, for example—and explain how their theory can be applied to analyze the teaching of core concepts in science such as heat and temperature, life and biological adaptation. They also report on the implementation of a research program that correlates the responsiveness of their methodology to all the main developments in the field of science education. This additional material will inform academic discussion, review, and further enhancement of their theory and research model.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 28th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling, ER 2009, held in Gramado, Brazil, in November 2009. The 31 revised full papers presented together with 18 demo papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 162 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on conceptual modeling, requirements engineering, query approaches, space and time modeling, schema matching and integration, application contexts, process and service modeling, and industrial session.

People make use of software applications in their activities, applying them as tools in carrying out tasks. That this use should be good for people--easy, effective, efficient, and enjoyable--is a principal goal of design. In this book, we present the notion of Conceptual Models, and argue that Conceptual Models are core to achieving good design. From years of helping companies create software applications, we have come to believe that building applications without Conceptual Models is just asking for designs that will be confusing and difficult to learn, remember, and use. We show how Conceptual Models are the central link between the elements involved in application use: people's tasks (task domains), the use of tools to perform the tasks, the conceptual structure of those tools, the presentation of the conceptual model (i.e., the user interface), the language used to describe it, its implementation, and the learning that people must do to use the application. We further show that putting a Conceptual Model at the center of the design and development process can pay rich dividends: designs that are simpler and mesh better with users' tasks, avoidance of unnecessary features, easier documentation, faster development, improved customer uptake, and decreased need for training and customer support. Table of Contents: Using Tools / Start with the Conceptual Model / Definition / Structure / Example / Essential Modeling / Optional Modeling / Process / Value / Epilogue

Conceptual change research investigates the processes through which learners substantially revise prior knowledge and acquire new concepts. Tracing its heritage to paradigms and paradigm shifts made famous by Thomas Kuhn, conceptual change research focuses on understanding and explaining learning of the most the most difficult and counter-intuitive concepts. Now in its second edition, the International Handbook of Research on Conceptual Change provides a comprehensive review of the conceptual change movement and of the impressive research it has spawned on students’ difficulties in learning. In thirty-one new and updated chapters, organized thematically and introduced by Stella Vosniadou, this volume brings together detailed discussions of key theoretical and methodological issues, the roots of conceptual change research, and mechanisms of conceptual change and learner characteristics. Combined with chapters that describe conceptual change research in the fields of physics, astronomy, biology, medicine and health, and history, this handbook presents writings on interdisciplinary topics written for researchers and students across fields.

This book constitutes the refereed joint proceedings of five international workshops held in conjunction with the 24th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling, ER 2005, in Klagenfurt, Austria, in October 2005. The 40 revised full papers presented together with the abstracts of seven tutorials were carefully reviewed and selected from 102 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on best practices of UML, experience reports and new applications, model evaluation and requirements modeling, metamodeling and model driven development, positions in engineering agent oriented systems, agent oriented methodologies and conceptual modeling, agent communication and coordination, geographic information systems, spatial and spatio-temporal data representation, spatial relations, spatial queries, analysis and data mining, data modeling and visualisation, conceptual modeling approaches for e-business, information system models quality, and quality driven processes.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 30th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling, ER 2011, held in Brussels, Belgium, in October/November 2011. The 25 revised full papers presented together with 14 short papers and three keynotes were carefully reviewed and selected from 157 submissions. The papers are organized in topical sections on modeling goals and compliance; human and socio-technical factors; ontologies; data model theory; model development and maintainability; user interfaces and software classification; evolution, propagation and refinement; UML and requirements modeling; views, queries and search; requirements and business intelligence; MDA and ontology-based modeling; process modeling; panels.

This book constitutes the refereed joint proceedings of seven international workshops held in conjunction with the 27th International Conference on Conceptual Modeling, ER 2008, in Barcelona, Spain, in October 2008. The 42 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 108 submissions. Topics addressed by the workshops are conceptual modeling for life sciences applications (CMLSA 2008), evolution and change in data management (ECDM 2008), foundations and practices of UML (FP-UML 2008), modeling mobile applications and services (M2AS 2008), requirements, intentions and goals in conceptual modeling (RIGiM 2008), semantic and conceptual issues in geographic information systems (SeCoGIS 2008), and Web information systems modeling (WISM 2008).