{"id":5400,"date":"2018-03-02T15:54:03","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T22:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/?p=5400"},"modified":"2018-03-02T15:54:03","modified_gmt":"2018-03-02T22:54:03","slug":"countering-misconceptions-through-inquiry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/2018\/03\/02\/countering-misconceptions-through-inquiry\/","title":{"rendered":"Countering misconceptions through inquiry"},"content":{"rendered":"

I explored an article by Clegorne & Mastrogiovanni who discuss the ways in which design thinking might bridge the worlds of science and humanities. In Grade Three, students explore the nature of sound, its sources, qualities and what it is. They learn that sound is vibration and that changes in vibration can affect the loudness, pitch and quality of sound. They learn about sound travel by studying what things carry sound, what things make it louder or softer, and what happens to sound when it reaches their ears. <\/span><\/p>\n

As a part of this unit, we begin with a problem students may be familiar with: airplane noise because our school\u2019s neighbourhood is on a flight path. We begin and end the unit with the same problem and can see growth in student understanding of how sound travels and how to mitigate harmful noises. A common misconception is that sound can be \u201cblocked\u201d by objects and students often suggest at the beginning of the unit that a good way to deal with the harmful or bothersome noises would be to put steel plates around houses to block out the noise.<\/span><\/p>\n

As we explore sound, we integrate digital tools to counter misconceptions: a <\/span>decibel meter such as the one available on itunes<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>twisted wave<\/span><\/a>, an online audio editor that allows users to manipulate sound and view the effects of different kinds of sounds on the sound waves. For example, students might be asked to speak in a high or low pitch and to vary the loudness of the sound produced. Following this, I ask students to create a podcast studio using the design thinking process and to test which materials are best at creating the ideal quiet studio and explore why those materials might work well. They are encouraged to go through multiple iterations as they hypothesize, test, and evaluate various materials. At the end of the unit, students are asked to return to the original question about the effects of being on a flight path and how to mitigate the sounds. Almost all students recommend soft materials inside the home over steel plates. The airport problem provides students with the opportunity to extend their understanding beyond the science concepts alone and into real-world applications. <\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Clegorne, N., & Mastrogiovanni, J. (2015). Designing alternatives: Design thinking as a mediating learning strategy to bridge science and the humanities for leadership learning.<\/span> The Journal of Leadership Education, 14<\/span><\/i>(4), 46-54.<\/span><\/p>\n

Khan, S. (2010). New pedagogies for teaching with computer simulations. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 20(3), 215-232.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I explored an article by Clegorne & Mastrogiovanni who discuss the ways in which design thinking might bridge the worlds of science and humanities. In Grade Three, students explore the nature of sound, its sources, qualities and what it is. They learn that sound is vibration and that changes in vibration can affect the loudness, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43597,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1669392],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-t-gem"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5400","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\/43597"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5402,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5400\/revisions\/5402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/stem2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}