Carol
L. Smith
Professor,
Department of Psychology
University
of Massachusetts/Boston
Educational Background:
B.A. 1970
Ph.D. 1976
Research:
I am interested in understanding how concepts develop and change, both in
children and scientists. More specifically, I have studied why some science
concepts are very hard for students to understand and what can be done to
improve science education. This research focuses on characterizing students’
initial commonsense theories in some domains (which often contain concepts that
are incommensurable with the scientists’ concepts) and understanding the
processes by which students can restructure and change these concepts. These
processes seem to be difficult and to take a long time, yet they are clearly
aided by some schooling practices and impeded by others. My research has
examined the role of several practices in facilitating conceptual change in
schooling contexts. These include helping students generate visual models for
ideas by engaging in a process of cross-domain mapping, encouraging students to
develop qualitative understandings as well as quantitative understandings, and
making students aware of their own learning processes and the process of
explanatory model construction in science. I have also investigated how
different schooling contexts affect students’ general conceptions of the nature
of science, learning, and knowledge. Finally, I have been interested in
exploring the parallels in the processes of conceptual change in children and
scientists and have collaborated with
Teaching:
Undergraduate:
Introductory Psychology, Infancy & Child Development, Cognitive Development
Graduate:
Children & Science, Advanced Cognitive Psychology, Seminar on Scientific Thinking, Understanding Science and Mathematics (taught in the Graduate College of Education and The Critical and Creative Thinking Program)
Selected Publications:
Smith, C.L., Carey, S. & Wiser, M. (1985). On differentiation: A case study of the development of the concepts of size, weight, and density. Cognition, 21, 177-237.
Smith, C.L. & Millman, A. (1986). Understanding conceptual structures: A
case study of
Grosslight, L., Unger, C., Jay, E. & Smith, C. (1991) Understanding models and their use in science: conceptions of middle and high school students and experts. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 28, 9, 799-822.
Smith, C., Snir, J., & Grosslight, L. (1992) Using conceptual models to facilitate conceptual change: The case of weight/density differentiation. Cognition and Instruction, 9 (3), 221-83.
Carey, S. & Smith, C. (1993). On understanding the nature of scientific knowledge. Educational Psychologist. 28 (3), 235-251. (Also reprinted as Chapter 3 in the book Software Goes to School, 1995, Oxford University Press, pp. 39-55.)
Snir, J., Smith, C. L., & Grosslight, L. (1993). Conceptually enhanced simulations: A computer tool for science teaching. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 2 (2), 373-388. (Also reprinted as Chapter 7 in the book Software Goes to School, 1995, Oxford University Press, pp. 116-129.)
Snir, J. and Smith, C. (1995) Constructing understanding in the science
classroom: Integrating laboratory experiments, student and computer models, and
class discussion in learning scientific concepts. In D. Perkins, J. Schwartz,
M. West, and
Smith, C. and Unger, C. (1997) What's in dots-per-box? Conceptual bootstrapping with stripped down visual analogs. Journal of the Learning Sciences, vol 6 (2), 143-181.
Millman, A. & Smith, C.L. (1997) Darwin's use of analogical reasoning in theory construction. Metaphor and symbol, 12(3), 159-187.
Smith, C., Maclin, D., Grosslight, L. and Davis, H. (1997) Teaching for understanding: A study of students’ pre-Instruction theories of matter and a comparison of two approaches to teaching students about matter and density. Cognition and Instruction, 15 (3), 317-393.
Smith, C., Maclin, D., Houghton, C. and
Hennessey, M.G. (2000) Sixth
graders' epistemologies of science: The impact of school science experiences on
epistemological development. Cognition
and Instruction, 18(3), 349-422.
Smith, C. (2002).
Conceptual
change. In J. Guthrie (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Education, 2nd
Edition.
Snir, J., Smith, C., and Raz, G. (2003) Linking
Phenomena with Competing Underlying Models: A Software Tool for Introducing
Students to the Particulate Model of Matter. Science Education, 87, 794-830.
Smith, C.,
Solomon, G., and Carey, S. (2005).
Never
getting to zero: Elementary school students' understanding of the infinite
divisibility of matter and number. Cognitive
Psychology 51, 101-140.
Smith, C., Wiser, M., Anderson, C., and Krajcik,
J. (2006) (Focus Article of combined double issue of journal): Implications
of Research on Children's Learning for Standards and Assessment: A Proposed
Learning Progression for Matter and Atomic-Molecular Theory. Measurement,
14 (1&2), 1-98.
Smith, C. and
Wenk, L. (2006) The
Relation Among Three Aspects of College Freshmen's Epistemology of Science. Journal of Research in Science Teaching,
43 (8), 747-85.
Smith, C. (2007) Bootstrapping processes in the development of students' commonsense matter theories: Using analogical mappings, thought experiments, and learning to measure to promote conceptual restructuring. Cognition and Instruction, 25(4), 337-398.
Wiser, M. and Smith, C. (2008) Teaching
about matter in grades K-8: When should the atomic-molecular theory be
introduced? In S. Vosniadou (Ed.) International Handbook of research on
conceptual change. Mahwah, NJ.:
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. (prepublication draft)
Email: Carol.Smith@umb.edu