I was at a conference yesterday, where there was lots of talk and questions about misconceptions, mostly from the audience and less-so by the speakers. This isn't an exact quote but it's close:
"I'm worried that if we leave students to talk by themselves, they will develop misconceptions. I mean, where do misconceptions come from? They come from students. I'm worried that those misconceptions will crystallize and form stronger if we let them talk too long away from the guidance of an instructor."
OK. Yes, I cringed a little when I heard this. So, I want to to try to rephrase what this person said in a way that won't make me cringe, and may help me to empathize with this statement.
"I'm worried that if we leave students to talk by themselves, they won't always make adequate progress through their ideas. Where does ideas come from? They come from students. I'm worried that much of the progress they could make by working through their ideas will peter out or fall short if we let them loose too long without any guiding structures."
Brian,
ReplyDeleteGreat re-framing of that quote. But I've encourntered students who are afraid of going too far because "they don't want to cememt wrong ideas in their heads." Thanks largely to your prompting, I got better at not jumping in and trying to correct "misconcpetions" in our modeling discussions, and instead just let converversation continue with a minimal number of questions from me. But almost inevitably, my students would turn back to me for verification, deeply afraid that if they didn't have the right answer by then end of the class, they'd somehow be forever scarred.
I think this speaks a lot to the scientific upbring of my students, which prizes right answers obtained quickly above almost everything else, but I'm curious as to your thoughts as well.