One of the challenges that Heather faces in the video, \u201cThe Private Universe\u201d is of her not being able to let go of the \u201ctheory of bouncing light\u201d. This is mentioned towards the end of the video where Heather seems to have understood the rest of the concept of Earth\u2019s revolution but still holds onto her \u201ctheory of bouncing light\u201d that determines the season of the year. I found this part very interesting that she is not able to \u201clet go\u201d of her existing conception, however, she was provided knowledge on this concept and was expected to understand why the seasons change. I think the underlying factor behind any conceptual challenge is to not be able to \u201clet go\u201d of the conception even after you have been exposed to the reality or the truth.<\/p>\n
Similarly, I encountered some similar tendencies of not being able to \u201clet go\u201d of conceptions that some of my grade 8 students had when I taught the exponents unit last year. The product rule says if there is the same base with exponents, it is equivalent to the base with the powers added together. Now, my students create their own knowledge about multiplying the powers when two same bases are being added together with powers, without my interference. According to Confrey, a conception is when, \u201cchildren develop ideas about their world, develop meanings for words used in science, and develop strategies to obtain explanations for how and why things behave as they do\u201d (Confrey, 1990, p. 3). \u00a0My grade 8 children developed a strategy to solve the addition of exponents based on their knowledge of multiplication of exponents and no matter how hard I tried, they will not \u201clet go\u201d of the new understanding that they have created for themselves.<\/p>\n
Although analyzing Heather\u2019s \u201ctheory of bouncing light\u201d further, I also think that it might just be a result of creating explanation when asked a question on the spot. \u201cWe assume that mental model is a dynamic structure which is created on the spot for the purpose of answering questions, solving problems, or dealing with other situations\u201d (Vosniadou, 1992, p. 543). I think it is up to the teacher to avoid situations like this with their students where they feel compelled to create their own theories on the spot because they do not have enough background information on it. In the article, Tracking Decimal Misconceptions by Linda B. Griffin, there are some key points that could be beneficial for teachers who find themselves surrounded by students who either would not \u201clet go\u201d of their existing conceptions or make new conceptions because they are put on the spot. One of the key findings in this article is to make connections with what students already know. Instead of giving students pieces of information and leaving it up to them to make connections, these connections should be made by the teacher when teaching material by activating the previous knowledge. In addition to the above, a teacher might want to break the unit in pieces and do a formative assessment before moving on. Technolgy comes in really handy when doing a formative assessment as a quick check before moving on to the unit, such as Kahoot, online jeopardy and other quiz games.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Confrey, J. (1990). A review of the research on student conceptions in mathematics, science, and programming. Review of research in education, 16, 3-56.<\/p>\n
Vosniadou, S., & Brewer, W. F. (1992). Mental models of the earth: A study of conceptual change in childhood. Cognitive psychology, 24(4), 535-585.<\/p>\n
www.jstor.org.ezproxy.library.ubc.ca\/stable\/pdf\/10.5951\/teacchilmath.22.8.0488.pdf?refreqid=excelsior:681cc559288870a5c054a75882626988.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the challenges that Heather faces in the video, \u201cThe Private Universe\u201d is of her not being able to let go of the \u201ctheory of bouncing light\u201d. This is mentioned towards the end of the video where Heather seems to have understood the rest of the concept of Earth\u2019s revolution but still holds onto […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57098,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1669382],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-conceptual-challenges"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57098"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4970"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4971,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4970\/revisions\/4971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}