Course 7 - Addressing misconceptions in Science
Course description
It can be bewildering, that despite your best efforts, students still do not grasp fundamental ideas covered in class. When this happens, many times the teacher has neglected to identify misconceptions that students have regarding science content. In this module you will find some “common” misconceptions students have in relation to middle school science content as well as strategies and tools to identify misconceptions and change them
Topics Addressed
- Common misconceptions held in science
- Strategies for identifying misconceptions
- Tools to guide teachers and students through adjusting a misconception to a “truth”
Knowledge-skills-mindset
By taking this course, teachers will develop the following:
Knowledge
Knowledge
- Teachers know that students bring misconceptions to the classroom
- Teachers know methods to address these misconceptions in class and in the lab.
- Teachers know methods to assess students to ensure their understanding of the content is accurate and that their misconceptions have been corrected.
- Identify student misconceptions using strategies that work such as making thinking visible
- Plan lesson plans, demos and hands-on activities and labs that address misconceptions.
- Address these misconceptions in the class and lab.
- Assess student understanding to ensure that student misconceptions have been corrected.
- Recognize that students come to the classrooms with preconceptions and misconceptions
- Recognize the importance of identifying misconceptions so that students make new conceptions about a science topic