Previous Activities 2006

The 5th European symposium on Conceptual Change was hosted by the Department of Education, Stockholm University and took place at a conference site in Stockholm archipelago. Chair of the symposium was Professor Ola Halldén.
Eighty seven researches, coming from Europe, North- and South America, Australia, and Asia participated in the symposium.

The title of the symposium was, Bridging the gap between mental models and situated cognition? Theoretical and methodological considerations and the aim were to elaborate on theoretical and methodological issues concerning the relationship between constructivist and sociocultural perspectives to learning. This issue has been brought to the fore by two issues of the Educational Researcher, one from 1994 and the other from 1995, where there was an intense discussion about the possibility and the worth of combining the two perspectives. The discussion continued in a symposium at the EARLI conference in Padua (2003), as well as in the invited EARLI SIG Symposium in AERA in Montreal (2005). The 5th SIG symposium in Stockholm aimed at further contributing to this discussion.

The key note addresses by Paul Cobb, USA, Sandra Jovchelovitch, UK, John Leach, UK. Erno Lehtinen, Finland, Jean Francoise Rouet, France, Roger Säljö, Sweden, Russell Tytler, Australia and Stella Vosniadou, Greece, as well as the papers presented in the paper and poster sessions triggered intensive and fruitful discussions.
In a symposium in honour of Giyoo Hatano, the speakers highlighted his ability to successfully combine individual constructivist and sociocultural perspectives to conceptual change.

The conference ended up in an agreement that the debate between the constructivist and the sociocultural approaches enriches our perspectives on learning and gives new insights for the design of instruction aiming at conceptual change.

The next (6th) European Symposium of the Conceptual Change SIG will be held 2008 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Symposia will be hosted by University of Buenos Aires and Autonomous university of Madrid, Spain.