Are misconceptions a bad thing? Ummm…no…? After all, isn’t that what happens when we advance our knowledge in science? The old understandings now become misconceptions that we have to deal with. While reading TSS 4, it struck me that I was basically reading about the misconceptions that psychologists and educational researchers have had about student learning and their misconceptions.
I don’t think that there is any way that we can avoid misconceptions. Whenever we teach new material to students, they are automatically going to try to apply the new information to other instances. They will use the new information as explanations for other phenomena that they assume are linked to one another. In science we are pushing students to be able to apply new knowledge to other situations; to be free thinkers and problem solvers. In doing so, students are going to formulate more misconceptions (unless we can get them to just stop thinking); some of which may not be realized until further down the road when they return to the same subject matter at a deeper level. We can’t avoid misconceptions from forming; however, we need to find a way to deal with the misconceptions when they arise.
I don’t think that there is any way that we can avoid misconceptions. Whenever we teach new material to students, they are automatically going to try to apply the new information to other instances. They will use the new information as explanations for other phenomena that they assume are linked to one another. In science we are pushing students to be able to apply new knowledge to other situations; to be free thinkers and problem solvers. In doing so, students are going to formulate more misconceptions (unless we can get them to just stop thinking); some of which may not be realized until further down the road when they return to the same subject matter at a deeper level. We can’t avoid misconceptions from forming; however, we need to find a way to deal with the misconceptions when they arise.
As a student I feel that it is very important that I know that I have a misconception about something. If the teacher does not point this out I may not be able to determine it on my own. Should the teacher explicitly tell the students all of the misconceptions about a certain topic so that the students will know if their thinking falls within these or should the teacher allow the student to discovery their misconception on their own. I feel that the latter could be both a dangerous and valuable strategy. From experience, at my current age, if I discovery that I have a misconception I am motivated to discover the real answer and make sure that I fully understand how my thinking was wrong before. As seen in the reading, however, students of a younger age may know their misconception is wrong, but not fully eliminate parts of it in forming new concepts. This is where the danger lies in my opinion. The student may go on thinking that they have resolved any misunderstanding.
@Jess I absolutely agree with you that methods of teaching that are inherently bad and are going to lead to the construction of a misconception should be avoided. I guess what I meant was that students are naturally going to construct their own misconceptions just through the act of thinking. And those are the misconceptions that I don’t think are bad. It shows that they are thinking and at least attempting to use the information that you are giving them. Kind of like letting the students in Bio 1 develop their own experiments, which might have a bad design, but I think they need to go through that process and use it to build off of and learn from.
@Brittany Having students apply the new knowledge to other scenarios can be used as an assessment to see what types of misconceptions they may still have, or even if they understand the concept at all. You are right though about this being tricky. The instructor needs to make sure that the other scenario will not lead to a situation where the students will develop new misconceptions while trying to overcome one.
Misconceptions are a part of life. Hopefully the problem solving and reasoning skills that students develop will help them to think their way through things and prevent them from forming misconceptions in the first place.
I agree that misconceptions are going to occur no matter what. Though, I think that applying concepts that have been learned to new topics is a double edged sword. It is important that students learn to think outside the box and apply concepts to new problems and use previous knowledge to understand new ideas. However, as you stated, this in turn may lead to misconceptions occuring. The students may incorrectly apply their ideas to a new topic causing the formation of these misconceptions. So, where does the benefit of developing these problem solving skills end and the detrimental effect of forming misconceptions begin? And can we find a way to identify this and minimize it?
I agree with you that misconceptions are going to happen. It is the natural consequence of not knowing everything (or so they tell me). I do, however, believe that some misconceptions can be detrimental and when teaching strategies readily lead to certain misconceptions, when they don’t have to, then those strategies should be abandoned. In other words, regardless of the fact that misconceptions are inevitable they should still be minimized and there are some which should be eliminated altogether.
For example, something that annoys me is the water model for electricity. Students are often taught that electricity flowing through a circuit can be modeled after water flowing through a pipe. The model is easily understood, can be visualized by students, and can be quickly explained by teachers. Unfortunately, the model breaks down really quickly. How do you use this model to explain why circuits have to be closed? How do you use this model to explain resistors? I don’t know that you can really use this model to explain anything involving circuits, but it is a very commonly used model that leads to some fascinating misconceptions.
In the Posner article, accommodation of knowledge was linked to Kuhn’s paradigm shifts. I think this is a powerful analogy. Sure the Bohr model of the atom was replaced by a more complete description, but is the Bohr model itself a misconception or an incomplete description? I think it’s important to distinguish between the two.