TITLE: DON'T LOSE YOUR STUDENTS: USE A MAP
AUTHOR: JOHN F. CULLEN, JR.
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
The best way to correct misconceptions is to avoid them in the first place. Concept mapping is a powerful technique to help avoid the formation of conceptual misconceptions. This paper will discuss the philosophy, preparation, and the use of concept maps. Examples will be taken form the author's experience teaching college chemistry will emphasize how teacher prepared concept maps have the potential to help teachers to:
a) make curricular decisions by locating potentially confusing conceptual areas in laboratory experiments, exam questions, lectures, etc.
b) clearly differentiate and integrate similar subject material that is isolated in different chapters of a text or areas of the course.
c) increase student problem solving success by helping to form important conceptual linkages.
d) ascertain what a student knows about a discipline.
TITLE: IDENTIFICATION OF MISCONCEPTIONS IN GENETICS AND THE USE OF COMPUTER SIMULATIONS IN THEIR CORRECTION
AUTHOR: JUDITH F. KINNER
MELBOURNE COLLEGE OF ADVANCED EDUCATION
As with any discipline, the teaching of genetics ideally involves exposing students to learning experiences through which they will meaningfully acquire and elaborate relevant concepts and integrate them into existing frameworks. That the desired outcome is often not achieved can be seen in reports of misconceptions and rote application of rules in problem solving (e.g. Stewart and Dale, 1981).
Through a comparison of students' conceptions of probability in "genetic" and "real life" contexts, this paper will present the view that some misconceptions are due to factors extrinsic to the learner and are engendered as a consequence of limitations and biases in e experiences and materials to which students of genetics are exposed. This paper will also describe a study in which computer simulations were used in a variety of modes to extend traditional learning experiences, e.g. in active data gathering and strategy generation and execution. Through these uses, student' misconceptions were successfully confronted and concepts refined.
Stewart, J. and Dale, M. Aust. Sci. Teach. J. 27 (1981): 59-64.
TITLE: "DO THEY HEAR WHAT I SAY? AND DO THEY UNDERSTAND WHAT I MEAN"
AUTHOR: CHARLES E. LAMB
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
Communication in the mathematics classroom is of critical importance. It is through communication that teachers and students interact as a part of the learning process. Whether the communication be oral or written, it is of great importance that students and teachers receive information accurately and the interpret it correctly for application to the learning of mathematics.
As an example, in a teacher-student dialog there are four things which must occur: (1) the teacher says something; (2) the student hears it; (3) the teacher means something specific; and finally (4) the student understands it. Clearly, there are several possibilities here for something to go wrong. If this happens, the desired outcome will not be achieved.
This presentation will elaborate on this topic as well as presenting an informal look at common misconceptions in the elementary school mathematics classroom. Possible causes and remedies will be discussed.
TITLE: INTERPRETING EVIDENCE ABOUT MISCONCEPTIONS
AUTHOR: GERALD MCCLELLAND
UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD
Evidence for the existence of alternative frameworks is science has to be obtained form interviews with children and responses to specific tasks. The task of interpretation varies according to the amount of relevant instruction which the child has received and the quality of that instruction. Although the children need to be able to cope with the world of experience and interconnected explanatory concepts, unless, for some reason the phenomena involved are emotionally charged and recurrent and, hence, salient to the child. Other ways of dealing with, and talking about, phenomena are suggested. Where instruction has taken place, a lack of refined concepts may be attributed not only to the persistent ideas developed earlier in life but to the nature of the instruction itself and to the way in which the task of learning the concepts has been approached.
TITLE: METALEARNING AND METAKNOWLEDGE INSTRUCTION AS STRATEGIES TO REDUCE MISCONCEPTIONS
AUTHOR: JOSEPH D. NOVAK
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
In the past decade, there has been a growing number of research studies showing that students of all ages show a wide spectrum of misconceptions regarding science or other areas of knowledge. Moreover, attempts to redesign curricula or "confrontation teaching strategies" with explicit efforts to make students and teachers aware of misconceptions have usually produced only limited positive results. It appears unlikely that a teacher or curriculum planner armed with a "compendium of typical students misconceptions" could organize a program where such student misconceptions would be markedly reduced. However, the latter alternative deserves to be, and is being, researched further.
Another alternative is to present students with strategies that help them to "learn how to learn" (metalearning) and to "learn ho w knowledge is constructed" (metaknowledge). We have employed concept mapping as a strategy to help students and teachers understand human learning, and which also contributes to and understanding of knowledge and knowledge production. Vee mapping is a strategy developed since 1977 that employs a heuristic device, the Epistemological Vee, to help students understand the nature of knowledge and the nature of knowledge production.
Studies completed so far suggest that metalearning and metaknowledge ideas can be taught to students form six years old and up. Positive results in terms of complex problem solving have been demonstrated, and research is currently underway to ascertain the effects of these strategies on student misconceptions. As this time it appears possible that long-term use of meta learning and metaknowledge strategies (over a span of several years, preferably beginning early) could produce students who are qualitatively better learners and who acquire or retain significantly fewer misconceptions. Moreover, the se strategies have high promises as aids to design of improved instructional programs.
TITLE: THE MICROCOMPUTER IN COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH (PUTTING THE BYTE ON MISCONCEPTIONS)
AUTHOR: TERRY L. PEARD
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
This paper discusses a study currently being completed to explore the role of the microcomputer in educational research. Two questions are being focused upon:
1. How does the microcomputer contribute to meaningful learning?
2. Can the microcomputer serve as a research tool in assessing cognitive development?
This research address the learner's reasoning, problem-solving methods, and level of thinking in Mendelian genetics. The microcomputer, interviews, and concept maps are being used to assess the extent of learning and cognitive development. Forty college students form and auto-tutorial biology course make up the sample.
The results of this study will be discussed with an Ausubel-Novak cognitive learning theory framework. Educational implications will be considered.
TITLE: THINKING IN TWO WORLDS OF KNOWLEDGE
AUTHOR: JOAN SOLOMON
CHELSEA COLLEGE
The common meanings of words such as "energy" are context-dependent, and even contradictory, but they are continually reinforced by daily usage and will not die. Even the most accomplished physicist will continue to speak of "cold coming in" and "the rising of the sun." This means that teaching new meanings for concept words will build up a second tier of knowledge coexistent with, but radically different form the first. If misconceptions are to be avoided, our students will need to be able to discriminate between these two worlds of knowledge.
The use of concepts involves the interpretation of everyday phenomena in terms of abstractions. This requires crossing over between two different domains, explaining the commonplace by means of the symbolic, which is the starting point for every piece of problem solving, and appears to be more demanding than the return to the concrete examples. Some recent research with grade 9 students learning about energy will be reported.
TITLE: IMPLICIT STATEMENTS IN PHYSICS: STUDENTS AND CONSTANTS
AUTHOR: LAURENCE VIENNOT
UNIVERSITE PARIS VII
The word "constant" may evoke a range of meanings with the two following notions at each end: number, the essential being its numerical value; and a constant function of certain variables the important things now being the listing of these variables. In this way, constants appear as a particular aspect of functions of several variables. The results of an investigation among French and Belgian students at the beginning of their studies at University are reported and analyzed. These results show that the usual interpretation of the word "constant" is biased towards the numerical aspect of this notion, at the expense of its functional meaning. Lastly follows a plea for the use of exercises of "text criticism" as pedagogical tools in teaching.