From cognitive constructivist perspective, meaningful learning is opposed to rote learning and often refers to a learning way where the new knowledge to acquire is related with previous knowledge (Ausubel 2000). The design for meaningful learning usually involves five dimensions as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Dimensions of meaningful learning (Adapted from Howland, Jonassen and Marra, 2014)
Meaningful learning often leads to conceptual change, and conceptual change is the process whereby beliefs, ideas, or ways of thinking and relationships between them change in the learning process or over the course of an individual person’s lifetime. To understand the advanced, scientific concepts of various disciplines, students cannot rely on the simple memorization of facts. They must learn how to restructure their understanding or exiting knowledge based on the new information received. In other words, they must undergo profound conceptual changes (Vosniadou 2007) The conceptual change of students can be promoted by designing meaningful learning activities through 1) uncovering students' preconceptions about a particular topic or phenomenon and 2) using various techniques including ICT tools to help students change their understanding. Building and revising models from time to time can help to promote (and also monitor) the student’s conceptual changes over time.
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