However, several instructional strategies have proven to be effective in achieving conceptual change and helping students leave their alternative conceptions behind and learn correct concepts or theories. For all these reasons, misconceptions can be hard nuts for teachers to crack. Generally, ordinary forms of instruction, such as lectures, labs, discovery learning, or simply reading texts, are not very successful at overcoming student misconceptions. This puts teachers in the very challenging position of needing to bring about significant conceptual change in student knowledge. Hence, conceptual change has to occur for learning to happen. Also, alternative conceptions (misconceptions) tend to be very resistant to instruction because learning entails replacing or radically reorganizing student knowledge. In addition, students interpret new experiences through these erroneous understandings, thereby interfering with being able to correctly grasp new information. Moreover, misconceptions can be very entrenched in student thinking. First, students generally are unaware that the knowledge they have is wrong. These are "ontological misconceptions," which relate to ontological beliefs (i.e., beliefs about the fundamental categories and properties of the world).Īlternative conceptions (misconceptions) can really impede learning for several reasons. There is one class of alternative theories (or misconceptions) that is very deeply entrenched. Indeed, researchers have found that there is a common set of alternative conceptions (misconceptions) that most students typically exhibit.
Accordingly, as noted, it is very typical for students (and adults) to have misconceptions in different domains (content knowledge areas). This occurs when the new concept or theory is inconsistent with previously learned material. In addition, things we have already learned are sometimes unhelpful in learning new concepts/theories. In this way, even adults, including teachers, can sometimes have misconceptions of material (Burgoon, Heddle, & Duran, 2010). Hence, our understanding of them is flawed. They may be very abstract, counterintuitive or quite complex.
Moreover, some concepts in different content areas are simply very difficult to grasp. We quite naturally form ideas from our everyday experience, but obviously not all the ideas we develop are correct with respect to the most current evidence and scholarship in a given discipline. In fact, they are a normal part of the learning process. Alternative conceptions (misconceptions) are not unusual. These erroneous understandings are termed alternative conceptions or misconceptions (or intuitive theories). Student knowledge, however, can be erroneous, illogical or misinformed. When teachers provide instruction on concepts in various subjects, they are teaching students who already have some pre-instructional knowledge about the topic. With David Naff, Virginia Commonwealth University Joan Lucariello, PhD, City University of New York
0 kommentar(er)
