ABSTRACT
In order to foster conceptual change through instruction, we need to design curricula and instruction that on the one hand try to reduce the gap between initial knowledge and the to-be-acquired information so that students can use their usual constructive, enrichment types of mechanisms successfully. On the other hand we also should try to develop in students the necessary metaconceptual awareness, epistemological sophistication, hypothesis testing skills and top-down, conscious and deliberate mechanisms for intentional learning that will help them understand the problem of conceptual change and deal with it in the best possible way. In other words, instruction-induced conceptual change requires not only the restructuring of students’ naïve theories but also the restructuring of their modes of learning and reasoning. In order to accomplish these changes substantial cognitive effort and sociocultural support are necessary.
