I once had a similar explanation to Heather’s private universe back to middle school. After a brief introduction to astronomy, I incorrectly believed the earth moved around the sun in a spiral course, so the orbit looked like a copper coil. In that class, my teacher used a particular term ‘regression’ to describe the period when the earth rotates from a distant point to a close point in its orbit. Then I had an entirely wrong picture of that process, which might be due to my misunderstanding of the word ‘regression.’ This misconception was not identified nor addressed until we learned about the gravity between the sun and the earth in grade 9’s physics class. By that time, the idea of spiral orbits was already rooted deeply inside my mind, and I took a long time to overcome my old belief.
According to Davis’s (1997) research and analysis in his book, there are five categories of misconceptions:
preconceived notions
non-scientific beliefs
conceptual misunderstandings
vernacular misconceptions
factual misconceptions
Heather’s and my conceptual challenges of orbits could be examples of conceptual misunderstandings, which mean we ‘construct faulty models that usually are so weak’ that we ourselves ‘are insecure about the concepts’ (Davis, 1997). Davis (1997) further introduced some practical solutions to this type of misconception in science and math, such as Eric Mazur’s peer instructions, introductory laboratory exercises, and essay assignments that ask students to explain their reasoning. Among all these solutions, I would like to share Eric Mazur’s peer instructions with classmates, not only due to its high efficiency in identifying misconceptions in classes with large size but also because it increases students’ engagement and empowers students’ discussions. The strategy is described on page 22 @ https://www.nap.edu/read/5287/chapter/4
I’m highly inspired by this strategy and recalling one of the well-applied tools in universities: clickers. As I read more articles about identifying the misconceptions, electronic survey systems are always a pivotal point to discuss. Clickers provide real-time feedbacks for teachers to ‘understand what students are thinking prior, or in response, to instruction’ (Martyn, 2007).
Based on my personal experiences answering the interview questions in the video ‘a private universe’, I would also like to recommend teachers to apply factual learning in explaining concepts in order to avoid misunderstandings. I, too, merely recalled this astronomy knowledge learned from Grade 9 and not reviewed after that year’s final exam. I can’t remember concepts behind either seasons or days/nights, but I thought of 2 terms ‘自转’ and ‘公转’ (I had my middle school in China), which means ‘the self-rotation of the earth’, and ‘the rotation around the sun’. Then I immediately related the first word with the concept of ‘why there are day and night in one day’, then the second word with the question of ‘why there are 365 days in one year’. In the next step, I draw my speculations on how the earth would rotate around the sun to make 4 seasons based on factual knowledge. For examples, areas close to the equator are hot all around the year, and people who live in Northern Hemisphere are having wintertime while countries in Southern Hemisphere are in summer). Then I eliminated my unreliable guesses that I saw conflicts with factual knowledge, and I had the correct final guess! I believe, by learning as much as facts related to the concepts, students who even had few clues of concepts would conclude reasonable explanations by themselves.
Cheers, Yi
Ref:
Davis, B. (1997). Science teaching reconsidered: A handbook. National Academy Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/5287 (Links to an external site.)
Martyn, M. (2007). Clickers in the Classroom: An Active Learning Approach. The EDUCAUSE Quarterly, 30(2), 71.
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Some must reads:
Confrey, J. (1990). A review of the research on student conceptions in mathematics, science, and programming. Review of research in education, 16, 3-56. http://ezproxy.library.ubc.ca/login?url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/1167350Links to an external site.
Driver, R., Guesne, E., & Tiberghien, A. (1985). Children’s ideas and the learning of science. Children’s ideas in science, 1-9. Available online: search the title using any engine.
Fosnot, Catherine. Constructivism: Theory, perspectives, and practice. Teachers College Press, 2013 or 2005 version. Chapter 1: Introduction: Aspects of constructivism by Ernst von Glasersfeld or Chapter 2: Constructivism: A Psychological theory of learning or Cobb, Paul. “Where is the mind? Constructivist and sociocultural perspectives on mathematical development.” Educational researcher 23, no. 7 (1994): 13-20. Available in the course readings library.
Shapiro, B. L. (1988). What children bring to light: Towards understanding what the primary school science learner is trying to do. Developments and dilemmas in science education, 96-120. Available in the course readings library.
Erickson, G. L. Children’s conceptions of heat and temperature. Science Education 63, no. 2 (1979): 221-230.Available in the course readings library.
Vosniadou, S., & Brewer, W. F. (1992). Mental models of the earth: A study of conceptual change in childhood. Cognitive psychology, 24(4), 535-585.Available in the course readings library.
Posner, G. J., Strike, K. A., Hewson, P. W. and Gertzog, W. A. (1982). Accommodation of a scientific conception: Toward a theory of conceptual change. Sci. Ed., 66: 211–227. doi: 10.1002/sce.373066020. Available from Google Scholar as a pdf download.