Misconceptions?

      This week we learned about misconceptions in science! Many student tend to believe or create myths in their minds and it is up to us, as teachers, to help the students learn more information about the topic to turn away from those misconceptions or build upon them. In class we paired up with a partner and made a list of misconceptions for dinosaurs and violent weather. My partner was Amanda  and I was shocked to see that most of our misconceptions that we had when were little were very similar.

Some of our misconceptions on dinosaurs and violent weather were:

1. Dinosaurs were made up or just story parents told at bed time. 
2. All dinosaurs are violent and dangerous.
3. Thunderstorms were going to destroy my house and I would not have a home. 
4. Intense rainstorms were going to blow me away. 

       

     Students are going to create many more misconceptions on many other different topics. I work in a Daycare with a lot of two year olds and I have noticed they they even have misconceptions on many different topics in science and other subjects. I always ask them where they came up with their ideas and they always tell me different ways. Some learn it while watching cartoons or books. However, most of the books that they read are fictional. After coming up with some misconceptions we had as children we were asked to answer a couple of questions about them. These questions, as teachers, are a good way to figure out how and why students come up with them. 

The questions we had to answer were:

        

•   What does this say about the misconceptions with which our students will come to our science classroom?
• What is the purpose of identifying student misconceptions?
• How does identifying student misconceptions relate to constructivist teaching?

Here is the link to our answers and what we thought! Misconceptions that students create are out of our control, but we can guide our students to the truth and identify them when we notice them!