Teaching through Cooperative POE Tasks: A Path to Conceptual Change

Abstract

In this article, some instructional activities that were implemented to facilitate 9th-grade students’ conceptual understanding of diffusion and osmosis are presented to guide researchers and teachers in the design and implementation of a conceptual change-based instructional strategy. In this context, the study also elaborates the component analysis of conceptual change process. Cooperative Predict-Observe-Explain (POE) tasks were applied in the conceptual change instructional strategy. The POE tasks related to the process of diffusion (examples of diffusion of solids, liquids, and gases), the diffusion process between two solutions separated with a selectively permeable membrane, some factors affecting diffusion rate (temperature and molecular weight), the osmosis process in plant tissues (potato and onion tissues), and the osmosis process between two solutions separated with a selectively permeable membrane. The results of the study suggest that POE tasks can be used to design effective conceptual change-based teaching activities in cooperative groups. This study provides insight into the design and implementation of an active learning process and gives some evidence for conceptual change.

Keywords:

• biology instruction
• cooperative learning
• conceptual change
• lab activities
• predict-observe-explain technique