Despite myriad attempts over the years to design curricula with logical ordering and connections, concerns persist that students view science as a body of prescribed information to memorize. In this essay, we argue that attempts to build coherence into the curriculum reflect fundamental and enduring misconceptions about the nature of coherence…

Explores connections between naive epistemology and everyday instructional practice. Reviews examples of naive epistemologies as made up of fine-grained, context-sensitive resources. Presents strategies designed to help students tap those resources for learning introductory physics. Reflects on this work as an example of interplay between two…