The findings raise the question of why the idea-based class was more effective than the case-based class at fostering active use and an expansion of perception, but not clearly more effective at fostering an expansion in value. There are a few possibilities that are important to acknowledge. The most obvious possibilit y is that the elements of teaching for transformative experiences are not as effective at fostering an expansion in value as they are at fostering the other qualities of transformative experience. An addition to or modification of these elements may be needed to foster a signif- icant increase in expansion of value. Specifically, it may be important for the teacher to be very expressive in modeling the value that he or she gets out of engaging with the concepts. In addition it may be important to consistently encourage the students to share and discuss their own
expansion of value. Upon review of the videotapes of the instruction, this is something I found to be lacking. I observed that during the scaffolding phase of the instruction, the students talked about their experiences of using the concepts and how they were seeing animals through the lens of the concepts. However, they failed to express their emotions in relation to these experiences. They did not talk about whether their experiences with the concepts were exciting, thrilling, disturbing, illuminating, and so on. In addition, they did not talk about whether the animals were more interesting or “cool” when they saw them through the lens of the concepts. To put it in Dewey’s language, they talked about the expansion of perception they were experiencing but did not discuss whether they also experienced an expansion of meaning and value as a result of being able to “see the world anew.” Nevertheless, it is important to note that around half the students in the idea-based class did express an expansion in value in one way or another. This percentage may be large compared to what takes place in a
typical science classroom. In other words, the approach used in both the idea- based and case-based class may be effective at fostering an expansion of value.