Early Childhood Misconceptions

Study Guide Week 22 Science today and for the future Howe, A., Davies, D., McMahon, K., Towler, L., Collier, C. and Scott, T. (2009) Science 5–11: A Guide for Teachers (2nd edn), London, Routledge

In our research we have found that students who are in grades 6th through 8th and below find themselves believing in the misconception that our solar system is only made up of the sun, as well as eight planets. The California Science Standards state that, “The solar system consists of the sun and the collection of objects, including planets, their moons, and asteroids that are held around the sun by its gravitational pull.” (NGSS, 2017). When a teacher is applying the California science standards to their students they have to keep in mind that not every student has the same learning style. Every individual student has a different learning style, like kinesthetic, visual, and auditory to help them best learn in school. The misconception of the solar system is being reinforced through california's science standards and teaching techniques but it doesn’t have too.

Our group decided on the science understanding of chemical science as our theme through strong influence from the Victorian Curriculum, as we adapted our unit of work to focus on the ‘Three States of Matter’ that centred around looking specifically at solids, liquids and gases in detail. We thought that this unit topic would be a fun and interesting to plan and create a sequence of six lessons with student-centred and hands-on activities throughout. I felt our presentation went informative in the sense of highlighting and addressing all our Victorian Curriculum components, although instead of just reading out all the content descriptors it would have been more beneficial to just focus and pinpoint how it relates, and how it was incorporated

Students will be able to describe how matter changed and explain why it changed. (Evaluation: Students were required to form a hypothesis of what would happen when a given liquid were to stay outside all day long in the winter cold and state what happened to the molecules to change the liquid into a solid. Based on what you know, how would you explain why the liquid changed into a solid?)

According to Susman (2013), “science is a moving target, forever advancing and getting more complicated. It’s hard to keep up and really hard to catch up. What you learn in high school is often so different by the time you have kids of your own that you can’t easily help them with their science homework. Science changes faster than iPod models”. In this case study, Clifton High School principal believed that “students learn Science by doing, not simply by watching” (Picciano, 2011, p. 182). In 2009, the principal had trouble recruiting qualified science teachers and providing a full Science teaching program.

For standard 2.1.5 I found an example in the first and second grade lab balance and motion. The question asked what my lab group observed when we stroke the tuning fork against the table and held it to the table tennis ball. In reference to the tuning fork the tennis ball starts to bounce off of it due to the vibration of the tuning fork and the sound waves being emitted. We described the position and motion of the tennis ball relative to the tuning fork. For standard 2.1.6 I found an example in the kindergarten lab exploring forces and motion.

Dr. Schmude’s Integrated Science 2002 class is an extremely enthralling course; nevertheless, it has its challenges; however, the challenges come from enrolling in the class with pre-conceived misconceptions that are incompatible with fully established scientific theories. Misconceptions are views or opinions that are incorrect because they are fallacious. The top three misconceptions I came bearing with me to this integrated science course are (1) the moon is not in free-fall, (2) everything that moves will eventually get to a halt because rest is the innate province of all objects, and (3) heavier objects fall faster than weaker ones. The misconceptions I entered the course with were immediately challenged by Dr. Schmude’s scrupulous teaching and natural knowledge on the topic.

Thomas Khun begins his first essay by affirming that every scientific community needs to practice trade with a set of received beliefs. These beliefs configure the infrastructure of the “educational initiation that prepares and licenses the student for professional practice.” A system of “beliefs is very important as the “rigorous and rigid” education aids in confirming that the presented beliefs are engraved into the students’ minds. Scientists are defensive over what they view the world to be like; and what “beliefs” they hold to be true. As a result, “normal science” will hesitate to accept unconventional beliefs that oppose its foundations. Therefore, experimentation is not about unveiling the unrevealed, rather it is "a strenuous and devoted

This article addresses the misconceptions students have about chemical and physical changes that occur. When trying to understand the difference between physical and chemical changes, students often try to look for something that stands out between the two. A few common misconceptions are thinking that all chemical changes have to be a something new formed and physical changes always have to be reversible. This article explains how it is not always the case when it comes to physical and chemical changes. A few examples the article gave was when an egg gets broken and how it is nonreversible but would still be considered a physical change and not a chemical one. Another example the article gave was mixing a drink mix powder and how the substance is now different but nothing chemical really occurred during the process. Therefore, the article explains that relying on these common misconceptions is not the best when trying to teach physical and chemical change.

Teachers sometimes teach things based on correct or incorrect basis to cover the curriculum quickly instead of switching places with their students momentarily to understand the reasoning behind their misconceptions that caused their wrong answer in the first place. In “The Importance of Getting Things Wrong by Anya Kamenetz”, she argues using quotes from Philip Sadler, professor of astronomy and the director of the science education department at Harvard University, that “if you don’t understand the flaws in students’ reasoning you’re not going to be able to dislodge their misconceptions and replace them with correct concepts”. A more Socratic teaching style would both benefit teachers and students by allowing teachers to destroy any lasting

On my first day of kindergarten I remember being scared to death. The older kids on the bus tried to blindside me into thinking my teacher was going to be a nasty lady and I had no hope in learning anything. Being the six year old that I was, I believed every word and immediately criticized my teacher from the start. After countless misconceptions of many of my educators over the years, I’ve learned that not only myself but others like students, parents and the general public judge anyone with a teaching degree. At times I didn’t even realize I was one of those people doing it. After many harsh thoughts and opinions, I began to wonder what actually was their doing versus the schools.

The statement, “context is all” is demonstrated by the area of knowledge of natural science. In my IB Physics Standard Level classes, we learned concepts that were often

Piaget’s theory also allowed us a way to accept and understand that children's cognitive behavior is intrinsically motivated. Social and other reinforcements do influence children's cognitive explorations but children learn because of the way they are built. In Piaget’s mind cognitive adapts to the environment through assimilation. Also accommodation is a type of biological adaptation (Flavell, 1996). According to Piaget in order to characterize cognitive development in humans we need to understand co-present in cognitive activity which is cognitive structure (Flavell, 1996). Piaget was the first psychologist to try explaining describing cognitive development. His argument is that intellectual advances are made through the equilibration process that has three steps: the first step is for the cognitive equilibrium to de at a low development level; then, cognitive disequilibrium has to be induced by discrepant or inassimilable phenomena and lastly cognitive equilibration has to be at a higher developmental level.

ABSTRACT: This essay explores the benefits of utilizing non-scientific examples and analogies in teaching philosophy of science courses, or general introductory courses. These examples can help resolve two basic difficulties faced by most instructors, especially when teaching lower-level courses: first, they can prompt students to take an active interest in the class material, since the examples will involve aspects of the culture well-known to the students; second, these familiar, less-threatening examples will lessen the students' collective anxieties and open them up to learning the material more easily. To demonstrate this strategy of constructing and employing

Not everything can be assimilated into existing schemas, though, and the process of accommodation must be used. In accommodation, existing schemas are modified or new schemas are created to process new information. According to Piaget, cognitive development involves an ongoing attempt to achieve a balance between assimilation and accommodation that he termed equilibration. He formulated a theory that systematically describes and explains how intellect develops. The basis of his theory is the principle that cognitive development occurs in a series of four distinct stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operations, and formal operations.