Jonassen et al (2003)

This paper view modeling from another angle - conceptual change. Actually, I am not sure the differences between change of mental model and conceptual change. Just like the model described in Seel (2003), this paper also advocate change of mental model.

Jonassen and colleagues first described some theoretical foundation of conceptual change. They suggested synthetic view and cognitive view of conceptual change is more relevant in their hypothesis than the social/cultural view. Actually, the hypothesis talk about facilitating multiple representation of knowledge. de Jong & van Joolingen (2008) suggested Cognitive Flexibility Theory (CFT) may provide the theoretical foundation for multiple representation. Collaboration, argumentation, negotiation among group members may provide multiple representation.

The authors suggest that technology provide affordances to enable us externalize our model. By externalize our models, we may make revision of conceptual understanding, which is the conceptual change.

The authors also suggest that we can model domain knowledge, problems, system, experiences, and thinking using different tools. However, it is not clear that whether there is a one-to-one match between the phenomenon and the tool. Or what are the factors may affect the choice of tool?

It is interesting that the authors talked about different tools that is not originally design as modeling tool (or cognitive tool). For example, database and spreadsheet are tools that have "business" purposes. However, they still can be used as modeling tools.