Heather’s misconceptions stemmed from applying colloquial understanding for key terms (direct vs. indirect rays) and the misattributing a textbook figure. I cannot comment on the conceptions about the moon phases because I’ve never learned astronomy before. As I watched the video, I wondered if Heather’s teacher engaged the students in formative or summative assessment. From the video, perhaps the teacher’s method of formative assessment was to ask, “Do you understand?”. What appears to have happened in this case is that the students each formed their own ideas and assumed that that is what the teacher also thought.
As Confrey (1990) explains, students’ conceptions form as per Piaget’s theory of assimilation. When forming schema, students are basing making connections based on their past experiences and prior knowledge. They individually construct these alternate conceptions and come to an equilibrium when they accept these information. However, if students are exposed to experiences that do not match their schema, they experience disequilibrium (Yilmaz, 2011). Students may:
- disregard (accretion) the experience and continue with their conception
- accept the experience as an exception (tuning) and continue with two conceptions
- form a new theory (reconstruction) to explain the contradiction (Yilmaz, 2011)
Without any meaningful assessment, Heather and the other students constructed their own understanding but did not engage in cycles of (dis)equilibrium to shape their understanding to match that of an expert.
In ETEC 524, my unit of learning was based on misconceptions in Chemistry and how teacher candidates could use constructivist methods to overcome them (you should be able to see the course, if not please let me know and I’ll adjust the settings.). One of the activities I made was based on self assessing one’s own alternate conceptions. It’s interesting to hypothesize the origins of some of these alternate conceptions:
- All liquids contain water (Jarvis et al, 2005).
- Water is probably the most common liquid students see. Due to its ubiquity, it’s likely the most common example and makes students think that it’s in all liquids.
- “Liquid” also has a colloquial use. Students miss the complete picture of substances and mixtures (academic language). For instance, some students might realize that milk contains water and think that milk is a pure liquid. However, it is a colloid.
- If you leave a glass of carbonated water out and the bubbles leave it, the mass will stay the same (Jarvis et al, 2005).
- Students may think of their own experience where the mass feels similar and any difference feels negligible to them. As well, they might think that gasses are very light and think that this means they do not have a mass.
- Using the previous alternate conception, students might attribute a change in mass to evaporation of water.
To overcome some of these misconceptions, constructivist methods can be used to elicit, identify, and correct them. In the course I made, some suggestions and technology that could be employed included:
- Web tools from the Royal Society of Chemistry: There are specific tools like concept cartoons, models, and animations. For something that already includes guiding questions, ExploreLearning Gizmos are often used. The idea here is help students visualize what is happening at the molecular level (in some cases) and for them to explain their private theories.
Outside of this, it’s important to consider how we engage students in assessment. Something that I’ve used/modified is a multi-tier multiple choice. This can be used to identify a misconception, why students think it, and the strength of the misconception (Caleon & Subramaniam, 2010). If using three tiers like Caleon & Subramaniam (2010):
- Pick the answer
- Why did you pick that answer
- What is your confidence level that that is the correct answer (basically guessed to absolutely confident)
the idea here is that the confidence level gives an insight into whether students have an alternate conception (high confidence) or if they are guessing (low confidence).
References
Caleon, I., & Subramaniam, R. (2010). Development and application of a three-tier diagnostic test to assess secondary students’ understanding of waves. International Journal of Science Education, 32(7), 939-961. doi:10.1080/09500690902890130
Confrey, J. (1990). A review of the research on student conceptions in mathematics, science, and programming. Review of research in education, 16, 3-56.
Jarvis, T., McKeon, F., and Taylor, N., (2005), Promoting conceptual change in pre-service primary teachers through intensive small group problem-solving activities. Can. J. Sci. Math. Technol. Educ., 5(1), 21–39.
Yilmaz, K. (2011). The cognitive perspective on learning: Its theoretical underpinnings and implications for classroom practices. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 84(5), 204-212. doi:10.1080/00098655.2011.568989