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GORDON ELDRIDGE: LESSONS IN LEARNING

Teaching for Understanding: How Can We Best Deal with Student Misconceptions?

By Gordon Eldridge, TIE Columnist
08-Apr-14


In a recent column, I reviewed some research on student misconceptions. The research indicated that:
• Misconceptions can be incredibly persistent, even in the face of extensive classroom instruction.
• Direct instruction on the target idea is not always as helpful as we hope, and can sometimes even lead to further misconceptions.
One of the main reasons for this is that our understanding of an idea does not consist of a collection of isolated facts. Our brains tend to store knowledge in connected ways, which means that a misconception is really a set of interrelationships we use to explain and predict the world.
So, if direct instruction of the target model is not always the most effective means of moving students towards more productive conceptual understanding, what does work? Research suggests that a number of strategies may be helpful.
Some of those commonly used in classrooms are:
1. Referring to the misconception intentionally while giving instruction on the target model.
2. Drawing out students’ misconceptions, and having them directly compare their ideas with the target model.
3. Allowing students to experience a discrepant event, which demonstrates that their ideas do not work.
All of these techniques have been shown to produce some level of success, but some studies show that even with techniques such as these, a large number of students may fail to correct their misconceptions.
Sometimes even when they appear to have adjusted their thinking as a result of instruction, they may revert to their original ideas at some later date. One strategy that shows a lot of promise in moving students’ thinking forward is the use of analogy.
Why might analogies work where other strategies fail?
All the strategies listed above require the student to notice something in the target model that conflicts with their own thinking. The problem is that we know that our ability to "notice" depends heavily on our prior understanding. Our prior understanding can act as a filter, which means that none of the conflicting evidence gets through into our consciousness. We look for evidence that confirms our thinking and overlook evidence that conflicts with it.
So a more effective strategy might be to find a way to activate some useful aspects of a student’s prior understanding and build on them, rather than treating prior understanding merely as something negative to be overcome. That seems to be precisely what analogies make possible.
Research on the use of analogies in classrooms
John Clement (2008) of the University of Massachusetts has summarized some of the important research on using analogies to lead students towards conceptual understanding. One of the studies he cites demonstrates their potential well. Dupin and Johsua (1989) found that students held the misconception that the current in a DC circuit was "used up" by the bulb. Even when confronted with a discrepant event showing that the current remained the same on both sides of the bulb, many students still hung on to their initial view.
However, when the students were presented with the analogy of a train running on a circular track, a significant number of the students altered their thinking. The analogy of the train seemed to tap into something students already understood and allowed them to make some inferences regarding the electrical circuit.
Inherent limitations
Dr. Clement also notes some of the limitations of analogies in moving student thinking forward:
1. Students may not understand the analogous case.
2. The analogy may not contain all of the relationships needed to understand the target.
3. The analogous case may be too far away from the target.
4. Students may transfer too many of the attributes from the analogous case to the target.
We can alleviate some of these potential problems with certain strategies, however. The first limitation can only be dealt with either by using multiple analogies, or by carefully selecting analogies that are relevant to a particular group of students. The second can also be dealt with by using multiple analogies corresponding to the different relationships that need to be understood. The third limitation, that the analogous case may be too far from the target, can be dealt with using a series of "bridging analogies."
For example, a common misconception relating to the concept of forces is that a table cannot push up on something resting on it. Students believe the table is just a barrier that stops the object falling, but do not see it as producing a force. Physicists, on the other hand, see the table as exerting an equal and opposite force upward.
Camp and Clement (1994) used a series of bridging analogies to guide students towards understanding of this idea. They started with a hand on a spring, where the students were easily able to recognize the upward force exerted by the spring from their prior experience and understanding. They then moved to a book on a foam pad, then a book on a think flexible board and finally to a book on a table.
The lesson was taught Socratically, with a lot of questioning as well as summarizing and paraphrasing of student comments. The students taught this way showed significantly higher gains in understanding of the concept of forces than students in a control group. It appears that this gradual shifting of contexts allowed the students to expand their concept of "springiness" and of "forces" in incremental steps, building from a point firmly located in their prior understanding.
This evidence would seem to indicate that tapping into student’s prior understanding in positive ways through the use of analogies may hold more promise for overcoming student misconceptions than regarding prior knowledge as a possible impediment to learning.
It appears not to be a case of ‘either-or,’ however. Dr. Clement writes of the “Prior Knowledge Paradox” (2008, p. 427). By this he means that constructivist teaching theory tells us we have to build from our students’ prior understanding, but we know that often some of that understanding is in direct conflict with the ideas we want them to learn.
He reports research from a number of sources, which suggests that the optimal strategy in many cases may be a combination of analogies and discrepant events. For example, Camp and Clement (1994) added a discrepant event to the series of bridging analogies used in the lesson on forces reported above. They placed a mirror on the teacher’s desk and then shone a light beam onto the mirror, which was reflected onto the wall. The light beam was deflected downwards when someone stood on the desk. This provided dissonance for students who did not believe that a desk had "springiness." The students in this treatment showed gains in understanding greater than one standard deviation compared with a control group.
Finally, the fourth limitation of analogies, that students may transfer too many of the attributes from the analogous case to the target, can be dealt with by explicitly focusing on the limitations of the analogy being used. Harrison and Treagust (1996) found that students do not always interpret analogies in the way a teacher intends. “They transfer attributes from the teachers’ analog to the target … in a literal and undifferentiated sense” (p. 511). Glynn (1991) for his part proposes a six-step strategy for using analogies that includes a step in which students explicitly consider the points where the analogy does not work.
Even, so, over-transfer is something teachers need to be keenly aware of, as it has been shown to happen even when this step is included in the process (Else et al., 2008).
So what is the bottom line?
In wrestling with the problem of student misconceptions in the classroom, it seems that some instructional practices are more effective than others:
• It is essential that we intentionally activate student prior understanding about a concept in some way, prior to the introduction of complex new ideas.
• Both discrepant events and analogies can be helpful, but it seems that a combination of the two may be most helpful. They should be seen as complementary sources of information.
• We must always take care to ensure that when using analogies, we support the students in noticing both what is similar and what is not similar between the analogous case and the target idea.
References
Camp, C. and Clement, J. (1994) Preconceptions in Mechanics: Lessons Dealing with Conceptual Difficulties. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall Hunt.
Clement, J. (2008) “The Role of Explanatory Models in Teaching for Conceptual Change.” In Vosniadou, S. (Ed.) International Handbook of Research on Conceptual Change. New York: Routledge.
Dupin, J., and Johsua, S. (1989) “Analogies and ‘Modeling analogies’ in Teaching: Some Examples in Basic Electricity.” Science Education, 73 2, pp. 207-224.
Else, M., Clement, J., and Rea-Ramirez, M. A. (2008) “Using Analogies in Science Teaching and Curriculum Design: Some Guidelines.” In Clement, J. and Rea-Ramirez, M. A. (Eds.), Model-Based Learning and Instruction in Science (pp. 215-233). New York: Springer.
Glynn, S. M. (1991) “Explaining Science Concepts: A Teaching-with-Analogy model. In Glynn, S. M., Yeany, R. H., and Britton, B. K. (Eds.), The Psychology of Learning Science (pp. 210-240). Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum.




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