Let's talk about the Earth: Children learn about conceptual Earth models from their peers.

DE LA HERA, DP; CALERO, CI; SIGMAN, M

Buenos Aires

Congreso; II FALAN Congress; 2016

Federation of Latin American and Caribbean Neurosciences Societies

Peer interactions play an important role in children?s cognitive development. One example is peer tutoring, the acquisition of knowledge through learning from a companion of equal status, where previous data shows that children advance more when they attempt to solve a problem with a peer than when they try to solve it by themselves (Topping, 2015). Nevertheless, there is little to no quantitative evidence about how they do it and whether it has an impact in both, student and teacher. Here we present evidence, showing that by teaching each other, children may promote conceptual change about earth models.First, 46 second graders were interviewed to reveal which Earth models they held. Then, children were paired in dyads. Within each dyad, the child showing the more advanced model -the teacher- was told to explain the other -the student- that they should agree on and draw a representation of the planet. Finally, all children´s knowledge was reassessed. Knowledge dimensions were coded and scored.The subjects who had the role of students showed significant knowledge level gains found in dimensions relating to the position of objects on the planet, not seen in control subjects (who didn?t interact with a peer). Students´ ?copying? their teachers´ responses contributed to the knowledge level gains reported. No significant changes were seen in teacher subjects either, though a tendency of improvement was found for those who had had lower initial scores.