The Feature Focus Forum to be selected from Volume 2 Issue 3 is Learning without belief-change?
In this Forum, Michael H.G. Hoffman raises some questions in relation to El-Hani and Mortimer’s central thesis that science education should “avoid” the idea of changing students’ beliefs and explores the necessity of enabling students to be able to participate in discourse that both challenges their beliefs as well as their teachers’ beliefs. In response, El-Hani and Mortimer engage in a refocused discussion of some of Hoffman’s key arguments.

*Note For ease of access, the feature focus article and forum are available in the same PDF download. Hoffman’s contribution to the Forum begins on page 32 of the document and the response by El-Hani and Mortimer begins on page 39 of the document. Click on title of Forum to access PDF.

Michael H.G. Hoffman Michael H. G. Hoffmann is Associate Professor in the School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology (e-mail: m.hoffmann@gatech.edu). His research interests include semiotic and epistemological foundations of learning theories and of conflict research theories. His recent publications include ‘Signs as means for discoveries. Peirce and his concepts of ‘‘Diagrammatic Reasoning,’’ ‘‘Theorematic Deduction,’’
‘‘Hypostatic Abstraction,’’ and ‘‘Theoric Transformation’’’ (2005); ‘How to Get It. Diagrammatic Reasoning as a Tool of Knowledge Development and its Pragmatic Dimension’ (2004); and ‘Learning from people, things, and signs’ (2007).