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Week 10 Jigsaw Conceptual Change (Zirbel (THE ROOTS OF ALTERNATE…
Week 10 Jigsaw Conceptual Change
Ruhf
Zirbel
Introduction
“It is generally accepted that students do not enter the classroom as a "blank slate" (Pinker 2003). They come to school with already-formed ideas on many topics, including how they view and interpret the world around them. Sometimes these views may be rather strange, even elaborate, but regardless of their content, these views tend to be highly resistant to change” (Zirbel, 1)
THE NATURE OF CONCEPTS AND MISCONCEPTIONS
What Are Misconceptions?
“a misconception is a concept that is not in agreement with our current understanding of natural science. Often, these can be private versions of a student’s understanding of particular concepts that have not been tested scientifically, or premature beliefs that do not stand the test of scientific analysis or that have not been exposed it.” (Zirbel, 2)
What Are Concepts?
“Concepts are like mental representations that, in their simplest form, can be expressed by a single word, such as plant or animal, alive or dead, table or chair, apple or orange” (Zirbel, 2)
“Concepts can thus act like building blocks of more complex or even abstract representations.” (Zirbel, 2)
THE ROOTS OF ALTERNATE CONCEPTIONS
“Much of how we form concepts, both alternate concepts and scientifically correct ones, depends on the learner’s prior epistemology--how the learner accumulates information, organizes it, and consequently constructs personal views.” (Zirbel, 3)
Innate Knowledge
“some type of common sense reasoning seems to be a factor.” (Zirbel, 3)
Personal Experience
“Most students believe that understanding the world around them is a direct result of their observations and experiences.” (Zirbel, 4)
Grounding Arguments and Dynamic Concepts
“incomplete or misinterpretable instruction may support a preexisting (or maybe unfinished) misconception.” (Zirbel, 5)
Aristotelian and Impetus Thinking
“they more often use Aristotelian thinking to refer to simplistic ideas that have not been thought through sufficiently.” (Zirbel, 5)
Astute and Bizarre Models
“Another important point is that even though alternate conceptions can be erroneous and based on incomplete personal observation and inadequate analysis, they are not necessarily the result of a lack of reasoning ability” (Zirbel, 6)
Emotionally Loaded Alternate Models
“Sometimes individuals, especially when it comes to religious beliefs or very personal experiences, hold onto their beliefs no matter what. These individuals do not want to be convinced and can have emotional reasons that may be irrational.” (Zirbel, 6)
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The Conceptual Change Model (CCM)
The Conceptual Change Model (CCM)
“Students’ conceptual ideas are based on personal experiences and require real changes in thinking and adjustments at the neural levels” (Zirbel, 7)
“Posner et al. (1982) hypothesized that there are four essential conditions for conceptual change: (a) dissatisfaction with one’s current conception, followed by the degree to which the new conception is deemed (b) intelligible, (c) plausible, and (d) fruitful.” (Zirbel, 7)
“Conceptual change is only really successful if all individual stages of the initial theory are followed. However, this still does not imply that conceptual change really has to occur” (Zirbel, 9)
Beyond Conceptual Change
“Most educators want the student to go beyond just understanding a theory. Posner et al. (1982) suggested an additional step: that the theory has to be plausible for it to be accommodated, and that the new concept must make more sense than the old concept.” (Zirbel, 9)
“The final step in Posner et al.’s (1982) conceptual change theory is that the new concept must be successful in the sense that it can be applied to new situations and yield new results.” (Zirbel, 10)
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
“this article’s focus is misconceptions. Understanding the origins of misconceptions provides us with valuable clues about how students think and learn, and how they build ("construct") their own concepts.” (Zirbel, 10)
“Changing personal belief systems, especially emotionally loaded ones, is one of the biggest challenges--and most likely doomed to fail, particularly if the student is unwilling to have an open mind about a particular concept.” (Zirbel, 11)
“the student must become dissatisfied with his or her own prior theory…The student must be able to logically follow and understand the new theory and find that it does a better job than his or her prior theory in explaining the situation in question…the student must find the new theory successful in the sense that he or she can apply it to other situations and solve new problems--and above all, the student must show a personal willingness to do so.” (Zirbel, 11)
Posner
Strike
Dakota
Alyson
Olivia