Misconceptions, Preconceptions and Naive Beliefs

1. Misconceptions, Preconceptionsand Naive Beliefs Ken Miller Montana State University-Billings

2. Sources of Students� Confusion and Misconceptions Scientific models used to teach the concepts are often abstract There often is unexplored conflict between students� everyday experiences and the classroom or textbook presentations. Students� views about abstract concepts do not evolve as quickly as the rate of concept presentation in most classrooms and most textbooks.

3. Sources of Students� Confusion and Misconceptions Instructional materials used to convey abstract concepts are often two-dimensional diagrams with symbols. Many students lack the formal level of thinking and spatial skills to make sense of textbook presentation.

4. Elementary Children elaborate on the textbook: On the living body: Inside the ear we have a hammer, an anvil and a stirrup. So ears have a good excuse to ache sometimes! Look in an ear. If there aren�t three bones in there, then that is not an ear you are looking in!

5. Elementary Children elaborate on the textbook: On the living body: An appendix is something found in the back of the book, sometimes they get in people and have to be taken out. The skull has 22 bones in it. I know of at least one person who claims this is interesting.

6. Elementary Children elaborate on the textbook: On the living body: The pistol of the flower is the only protection against insects The alimentary canal is located in the northern part of Indiana For drowning, Climb on top of the person and move up and down to make artificial perspiration

7. Elementary Children elaborate on the textbook: On the living body: For fainting: rub the person�s chest or if a lady, rub her arm above the hand instead or put the head between the knees of the nearest medical doctor.

8. Elementary Children elaborate on the textbook: On the living body: Liter�. A nest of young puppies Vacuum�. A large empty space where the pope lives Blood flows down one leg and up the other

9. The Acquisition of Vocabulary Magnet Something you find crawling all over a dead cat. Genetics Explains why you look like your father and if you don�t, why you should.

10. Mimetic Responses Water is composed of two gins, Oxygin and Hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin. Hydrogin is gin and water.

11. Mimetic Responses The body consists of three parts- the brainium, the borax, and the abominable cavity. The brainium contains the brain, the borax contains the heart and lungs, and the abominable cavity contains the bowls. �a, e, i, o, and u�

12. % of 5th Graders who say alive Sun Candle Water Lightning Volcano Bicycle

13. Percent of 5th Graders Saying Alive Sun 53% Candle 47% Water 62%

14. Percent of 5th Graders Saying Alive Lightning 82% Volcano 76% Bicycle 36%

15. Children�s Understandings are Built upon Prior Knowledge and Experiences Trent Age 6 What makes the clouds move? The wind. How does the wind make the clouds move? By blowing on them.

16. Children�s Understandings are Built upon Prior Knowledge and Experiences When the wind blows on the clouds, where do they go? Somewhere else!!!! Where do you think? Hardin, Montana Why do they go to Hardin? Because my Grandma lives there.

17. Night and Day- 7 year oldStepans, J. The Journal of Natural Inquiry. Winter 1988 (2) 2 What is night? �When it gets dark and the stars and the moon come out.� Why is it dark at night? �Because you can�t go to sleep in the daytime.�

18. Night and Day- 7 year oldStepans, J. The Journal of Natural Inquiry. Winter 1988 (2) 2 Where does the darkness come from? �Black paper.� What is day? �White paper and when the sky is clear it�s blue paper.�

19. Night and Day- 7 year oldStepans, J. The Journal of Natural Inquiry. Winter 1988 (2) 2 What makes the day change to night? �They change the paper!�

20. Inquiry Learning Strategies Can Promote Conceptual Change In order to understand your student�s misconceptions, you first have to confront their beliefs.

21. Inquiry Learning Strategies Can Promote Conceptual Change In order to confront their beliefs, you have to ask them what it is they believe!

22. Todd Age 7Miller, K. 1994 The Teacher Educator Dad. Has anyone ever been to the moon? Sure, lots of people. I think........ about 21 people have been to the moon. Of course they all did not ..... Well, they didn�t spend the night did they? Sure they spent the night. They had to because it is too far away.

23. Todd Age 7Miller, K. 1994 The Teacher Educator Todd, have you ever seen the moon and the sun at the same time? Oh......yeah. We are going to have to rethink this one Dad.

24. Maureen Age 9 Thunder and Lightning What do you think clouds are made of? Water and air. The air holds the water up until it gets too heavy. Why would two clouds made of water and air make electricity when they hit together? Sometimes they hit over a telephone pole.

25. Maureen Age 9 Thunder and Lightning And that is when there is lightning? Yes. What about thunder? That�s the noise that clouds make when they hit together. Why is it so loud? It is really quiet but the sky is so big it echoes and sounds louder.

26. Maureen Age 9 Thunder and Lightning Can there be thunder without lightning? Yes, because sometimes there is no telephone pole.

27. What Are We Learning About the Learner? Young Learners are not little adults. They look at the world differently. Many learners come into the learning environment with naive ideas about the world and leave with the same ideas. Young learners are not immediately convinced about things, they go through constant restructuring

28. What color is blood? Look at your veins in your arm or hands. What is the color of blood while it is still in your body? When it touches oxygen?

29. Misconceptions Die Hard Children�s misconceptions are often so well established that unless teachers identify and adapt instruction and experimentation toward them, the misconceptions can prove impossible to dislodge.

31. The Conceptual Change Teaching ModelStepans, J. (1995) Targeting Students Misconceptions 1. Commit to an Outcome 2. Expose Beliefs 3. Confront Beliefs 4. Accommodate the Concept 5. Extend the concept 6. Go Beyond

32. Misconceptions, Preconceptionsand Naive Beliefs Ken Miller Montana State University-Billings