Question

Identify a common misconception that pupils frequently make in your subject. In choosing the misconception, try to identify one that plays a critical role in pupils’ further learning and understanding; most importantly, you must be able to explain why you regard this misconception as critical/fundamental to pupil learning.

The idea that the ‘Earth is flat’ is a very common misconception and plays a critical role in understanding follow up topics such as how day and night occur or the occurrence of seasons, the concept of gravity.  

Several instructional strategies have been proven to be effective in achieving conceptual change. With reference to the Rosenshine’ Principles, the strategies that teachers could use for an optimal misconceptions replacement are: (1) the lesson should start with a short review of the previous learning (2) materials are to be presented in small steps with student practice after each step (3) address a large number of questions and check the responses of all students (4) providing models and worked examples can help students learn faster, while spending more time on students’ practice. (5) checking students’ understanding and providing scaffold for difficult tasks, requiring and monitoring independent practice and engaging the students in weekly and monthly review. 

According to the Professor Annette Taylor’ model, the ‘Earth is flat’ misconception could be addressed through a 4 steps process referred to as refutational teaching. Firstly, the students are presented with the correct information or as the ‘’right is right’. ‘The fact that the Sun sets at different times in different locations lets us know that the Earth is a sphere’. At this stage we are only providing some facts about the Earth as a sphere, but have not mentioned about the misconception yet because it is not part of the facts. ‘But I know that many of my students believe that the Earth is flat. I know this because I pretest my students at the beginning of each term, so I have a good idea of their misconceptions’. 

Secondly, I bring up the misconception but I do not begin with it.  ‘Why right is right’ or the facts will follow instead. By doing so we are allowing the pupils that are holding misconceptions to keep up going with the on-going flow of information in the class rather than struggling to listen. ‘The photos evidence from NASA support the idea that the Earth is a sphere’. 

Thirdly, I will start introducing the students with ‘why wrong is wrong’ or focusing only on refutation. ‘The shadow is not the same length at different locations therefore, the sun is not hitting all the places on Earth at the same angle, resulting in different shadows’. I will avoid repeating the misconception to decrease the familiarity of misinformation.  

Finally, the fourth stage is inoculation and I want students to keep the correct information in their memory and attach the misconception a ‘tag’, so they will recognise the misconception in real life. Inoculation is also referred as the students’ immunity to future exposure to misconception and protection to the new belief to revert to misconception.  

American Psychological Society also recommends instructional strategies such a as assessing students pre-conceptions (write down their pre-existing conceptions about new material) and then create a bridge of examples to the new concepts and challenge multiple assumptions. Raising students’ metacognition of their own alternative knowledge and engaging students in experiences that causes cognitive conflict are also efficient strategies. 

The Early Career Framework also suggests that (1) prior knowledge play an important role in how pupils learn; (2) new knowledge are added to address a lack of prior knowledge; (3) fill the gap with prior knowledge; and (4) correct misconceptions. In the first two contexts, the teacher is addressing a lack of knowledge, by carefully sequencing the content so that foundational concepts and information are fully embodied before moving to complex idea. The correction of misconceptions is a much more difficult. The tasks need to be structured and the questions need to enable the identification of knowledge gaps and misconceptions. The content needs to be taught in manageable steps and with guided opportunities for pupils to apply what they learn so the new info in received and processed accurately.  

*Rosenshine's Principles:

1.  Begin a lesson with a short review of previous learning
2. Present new material in small steps with student practice after each step
3. Ask a large number of questions and check the responses of all students 
4. Provide models
5. Guide student practice
6. Check for student understanding 
7. Obtain a high success rate
8. Provide scaffolds for difficult taks
9. Require and monitor independent practice
10. Engage students in weekly and monthly review

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