ah here they come our students just
brimming with enthusiasm and highly
contagious stomach bugs each one of like
slate a pristine sponge ready to soak up
every new idea presented by the teacher
and parodied by pro badum on test day
now that's good learning yeah that's not
how it works it but but of course it is
I'm the omniscient narrator I know
everything yeah what number am I
thinking of seventeen thousand three
hundred sixty-nine it was four maybe the
word omniscient is a bit strong
look I've been teaching for 12 years and
trust me these students are anything but
blank slates they may be here for eight
hours a day but for the other sixteen
they're in all kinds of classrooms the
dinner table karate lesson yeah they're
Snooper peeper feed trashy
vampire novels Oh easy they're not all
trashy my point is that these kids are
out there living life constantly
learning things some of those things are
good but some well let me show you okay
class if I were to drop these two balls
at the same time which do you think
would hit the ground first oh I know
this one the basketball would hit the
ground first and what makes you think
that Justine this one time I tried to
dunk confetti on my baby brother
okay the crawls like a snail through mud
and it took forever for it to reach the
ground so I know that lighter things
fall more slowly it's basic physics but
their answer is all wrong all objects
fall towards Earth at the same rate no
matter what their mass that's like
falling 101
how did Justine pick up that wrong idea
sounds like she got it by observing
everyday life
the important thing is right now that
idea makes more sense to her than the
correct one it's called a misconception
well just give her the right answer and
the misconception will go away it ain't
that simple who is that the guy who's
been sticking around his school since
you were in diapers and maims gummerson
I know it's a little on the nose here's
the deal jack children need to find ways
to make sense of the world around them
we all do and those ways of thinking are
called mental models without these
models the world would feel like one
bloomin buzzing confusion mental models
help us create order out of that
confusion think of them as our own
internal private explanations for why
things are the way they are and do what
they do how do plants grow how do waves
communicate how can anyone dislike
cilantro hate that stuff oh boy these
mental models might be flawed or even
completely wrong but as long as they
make it easier to navigate our
day-to-day lives
we're reluctant to let them go they're
sticky like me so then how can a teacher
get students to actually learn new
concepts well we've already done step
one we found out what Justine already
thinks about this idea if I don't ask
students what they think and why I won't
be able to address their misconceptions
but once you know what they're thinking
what can you do about it
think of Justine's brain as an ecosystem
of all the ideas in her mind some
peacefully coexisting and others in
trouble ah there it is the elusive
misconception the one that made Justine
think all light objects take longer to
fall hey that's the one where'd that
come from there it looks like miss Reyes
is introducing a new idea to replace the
misconception no matter how heavy or
light an object is gravity accelerates
all objects at the same rate notice how
she's not just presenting a new idea
she's explaining it using language the
students are already familiar with
that's called making the idea
intelligible okay but this new idea
still looks kind of pathetic this kind
of thing doesn't happen overnight pal
there's still more work to do
miss Reyes needs to get Justine to see
that this new idea could provide a
reasonable explanation for something
she's seeing in the world that this new
idea could be plausible ah man what do
you think now
Justine hmm okay but this new idea is
still a little herb shall we say anemic
and you are impatient there's still one
last step for the idea to really take
hold
Justine needs to start using it in the
world around here to solve new problems
and gain new insights Hey this means the
idea is now fruitful
intelligible plausible and fruitful wow
that's way more involved than the ideas
go in ideas come out story I started
with told you this understanding of how
we learn is called conceptual change
it's a useful learning theory but there
are also social and emotional factors
that affect learning Wow guess I had a
terrible mental model of how learning
happens in the classroom
still though that seems like a lot of
work miss Reyes what else don't I know
about what you do to discover more about
how kids learn science and the types of
misconceptions they might have visit us
online at science education si edu
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