Creative learning in science education

Making sense of the world-including the world of school learning-involves making connections between new and existing experiences. Whether this process is called the construction (Piaget, 1929), the generation (Osborne & Wittrock, 1985) or the creation of meaning, the relation of new experiences to existing understandings, images, experiences, and feelings are essential to the process of learning with understanding. For many years cognitive psychology has focused on the making of logical, sequential, highly structured connections. However, the computer metaphor for human information processing and storage is now being questioned and cognitive psychologists are beginning to explore the new 'unexplorable'-parallel, holistic, divergent, creative mental processes. In addition, this paper proposes a model of the learning process in terms of reciprocally interactive cognitive, affective, and social variables. © 1986 Australian Science Education Research Association.