hool. The visual impact of the concept cartoons was emphasised by one pupil's comment that "it beats written work any day!"
The initial judgements about the value of this approach in our own teaching have been replicated with a variety of groups in many different teaching situations. These include primary and secondary schools, pupils with special educational needs, pupils learning English as a second language, undergraduate and postgraduate students, primary and secondary school teachers and parents. Although the clarity of some of the concept cartoons has had to be improved, teachers generally found them remarkably easy to use and effective in their outcomes. "You just photocopy and go!" was how one teacher described the process.
Other outcomes have emerged from the research to extend the potential value for the concept cartoons. Differentiation was one significant issue. Although an attempt had been made to produce material which was accessible at a range of levels, we had not anticipated enabling such a wide degree of access as was shown with many of the cartoons. In some instances (Figure 4) the same concept cartoon generated considerable interest in groups ranging from young children to adults holding degrees in physics! One teacher also noted how it was possible to illustrate progression of ideas within her class through the pupils' responses to the concept cartoons.
The use of concept cartoons as a means of enabling restructuring of ideas to occur seems particularly significant. As noted earlier, guidance on how to restructure the learners' ideas is less well documented than the ideas that they hold and how to elicit them. Concept cartoons which illustrate alternative viewpoints appear to provide an important extension to the range of strategies currently available to teachers. They appear to offer a valuable strategy in a variety of teaching situations and with pupils covering a wide range of ages and capabilities.
Another significant point is the way that the concept cartoons frequently enabled the elicitation and restructuring phases of the constructivist teaching sequence to go on concurrently or consecutively without the need for teacher intervention. Bentley and Watts (1991) recognise that the linearity of the sequence form elicitation to restructuring is problematic. The use of the concept cartoons provides one means by which the time interval between these two phases may be reduced, enabling the elicitation and restructuring phases to be part of a more continuous process. From the learner's perspective this is probably a more valuable approach than one in which elicitation is separated temporally and procedurally from restructuring.
The concept cartoons enabled learners to become more aware of their own ideas and of possible alternative viewpoints so that the need for further investigation became evident to them. Deciding what kind of investigation would be most appropriate therefore became a matter of judgement for the learner rather than for the teacher. In this way the concept cartoons helped to minimise the problem of teachers having to respond to learners individually in the light of their ideas. The purpose of elicitation was to help map out the context for an investigation rather than simply to provide teachers with information about the learner's current level of understanding. Elicitation therefore became a more purposeful part of the procedure for the learners. The concept cartoons were viewed by many of the teacher-researchers as providing a more realistic perspective on how the constructivist teaching and learning framework might be applied in the classroom.
It is significant that development and restructuring of ideas did not always require practical activity as a stimulus. Although it is recognised that activity on its own does not guarantee learning (Driver, 1983; Hodson, 1990; Keogh and Naylor, 1993), the belief persists in many teachers that practical activity is necessary for learning in science to take place. The use of the concept cartoons illustrates an approach to learning in science