Re: Piaget and asundry

[jriley@lib.drury.edu (Jim Riley)]

(snip)
>    In response to an earlier post, I think that one reason that Piaget
> is no longer fashionable among Physics people is that Piagettian ideas
> allowed us to understand and categorize some of our successes and
> failures but never produced any systems that produced better
> instruction.  At least, no systems were publicized that produced better
> instruction without using up very large amounts of instructor time.  I
> think that there is a lesson for contemporary efforts in there also.
> -- 
> Maurice Barnhill, mvb@udel.edu                
> http://www.physics.udel.edu/~barnhill/          
> Physics Dept., University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716

Although it was an elementary science program SCIS (Science Curriculum
Improvement Study) was an NSF supported curriculum that was based on
Piagetian principles.  There was a complete set of instructional materials
including text and laboratory materials and a series of summer workshops to
educate elementary and college teachers about the program.  It was a good
curriculum that never caught on itself but did have some impact on other
curricula much in the same way PSSC physics has continued to influence high
schol and college curricula decades after its introduction. 
Jim Riley, Department of Physics
Drury College
900 N Benton Ave.
Springfield, MO 65802
e-mail: jriley@lib.drury.edu
Phone:  (407) 873 7233