{"id":7360,"date":"2023-12-07T13:51:48","date_gmt":"2023-12-07T18:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/braindevs.net\/blog\/blog\/?p=7360"},"modified":"2023-12-07T13:51:48","modified_gmt":"2023-12-07T18:51:48","slug":"how-to-change-students-minds-create-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/how-to-change-students-minds-create-surprise\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Change Students’ Minds? Create Surprise…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sometimes teaching is challenging.<\/em> And sometimes, it’s REALLY challenging.<\/em><\/p>\n

For instance:<\/p>\n

Because I’m an English teacher, I want my students to know the word “bildungsroman.” (It means, “a novel of character formation.”\u00a0Their Eyes Were Watching God<\/em>\u00a0depicts Janie’s formation as a complete person — so, it’s a bildungsroman.)<\/p>\n

Alas, students find tha word to be disturbingly odd: “bildungswhat<\/em>???” they cry.<\/p>\n

And the definition is at times perplexing. Are the Harry Potter novels examples of a bildungsroman? How about\u00a0The Book Thief?<\/em><\/p>\n

So, learning that definition presents a challenge<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But, other literary terms create a bigger learning challeng<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As an English teacher, I also want my students to know the definition of the word “comedy.”<\/p>\n

In this case, my students and I face a much different problem. That is: my students\u00a0think they already know<\/strong> what ‘comedy’ means<\/em>.<\/p>\n

They think it means, basically, “a story that’s funny.”<\/p>\n

In the world of literary analysis, however, “comedy” doesn’t mean funny<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Basically, the definition goes like this: ” ‘tragedy’<\/em> ends in death or banishment; ‘comedy<\/em>‘ ends in marriage, implying birth.” (Lots more to say, but that’s a good place to start.)<\/p>\n

So: according to this definition, sitcoms aren’t comedy.<\/p>\n

And all sorts of stories can be comic, even if they’re not even a little bit funny. (I just read a murder mystery which has a comic ending: one of the protagonists goes on a date — implying the potential for marriage.)<\/p>\n

In research world, we call this problem a “prior misconception<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

That is: my students\u00a0think<\/em> they know the correct answer (“comedy” = funny), but the question really has a different answer (“comedy” = ending implying marriage).<\/p>\n

Sadly, prior misconceptions make learning harder.\u00a0Students’ prior misconceptions complicate the process of learning correct answers or concepts.<\/p>\n

So: what’s a teacher to do?<\/p>\n

A Scientific Method?<\/h2>\n

Although the examples I’ve offered focus on teaching English literary terminology, this question gets most research attention for teaching scientific\u00a0concepts.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

For instance: imagine pushing a\u00a0solid ball underwater. How much liquid will it displace?<\/p>\n

Younger students have an important misconception about this question. They typically think that the amount of water\u00a0depends on the WEIGHT of the ball<\/em>, not the\u00a0SIZE<\/em>\u00a0of the ball.<\/p>\n

This misconception about “displacement” will get in the way of later scientific learning, so teachers should correct it as quickly as we can. How best to do so?<\/p>\n

A research team in Germany<\/a> approached\u00a0this question with a specific strategy: using\u00a0surprise<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

These researchers showed a video to 6- to 9-year-olds, whom they met at a natural history museum.<\/p>\n

Half of the children were asked to\u00a0predict<\/em> how much water would be displaced when balls of various sizes and materials were\u00a0submerged.\u00a0Then they saw the actual results.<\/p>\n

Sure enough: the children who made predictions\u00a0 — based on their prior misconceptions\u00a0— were more\u00a0surprised<\/em> than those who didn’t. (Believe it or not, surprise in this case is measured by pupil dilation!)<\/p>\n

And, those children learned more<\/em> from the experiment than those who didn’t make predictions.<\/p>\n

That is: they scored higher on subsequent tests about displacement. And — even better — they scored higher on transfer tests<\/em> of this concept.<\/p>\n

So, one potential strategy to help students overcome their prior misconceptions about the natural world:<\/p>\n

Step one: ask them to make predictions based on those misconceptions<\/p>\n

Step two: surprise them with real-world experiences that contradict them.<\/p>\n

Boom: minds changed.<\/p>\n

Strengths, and Doubts<\/h2>\n

When I first saw it, this study appealed to me for a number of reasons.<\/p>\n

First,<\/strong> one author — Garvin Brod — has worked on several studies and papers that I admire. (I’ve written about another one here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

So, when I see Dr. Brod’s name on the byline, I sit up and take notice.<\/p>\n

Second:<\/strong> for a variety of technical reasons, I admire the study design. The researchers have taken great care to\u00a0get the tricky details just right. (For instance: their active control condition makes sense to me.)<\/p>\n

However, I do have concerns. (To be clear: Brod & Co. acknowledge both these concerns in their “Limitations” section.)<\/p>\n

Concern #1<\/strong>: duration.<\/p>\n

For understandable reasons, researchers measured the students’ learning\u00a0right away<\/em>. (The entire process took about 30 minutes.)<\/p>\n

But we don’t want our students to change their prior misconceptions right now. We want them to change misconceptions — as much as possible — FOREVER.<\/p>\n

This problem creates concerns because prior misconceptions are stubborn. To ensure that the “surprise” method works, it would be GREAT if we could retest participants weeks or months later.<\/p>\n

Concern #2<\/strong>: contradiction.<\/p>\n

I have seen other authors and writers raise a plausible concern. If we invoke students’ prior misconceptions before<\/em> contradicting them, we run the risk of strengthening those misconceptions.<\/p>\n

That is: students will naturally filter the new\/contradictory experience through the the distorting lens of their misconceptions. And that lens is EVEN MORE DISTORTING because we just asked students to activate it.<\/p>\n

Now at this point I have a confession: I simply can’t remember where I read that. But I remember thinking: “that sounds really plausible to me.”<\/p>\n

So at this point, I’m honestly kind of stumped. A well-conceived study suggests the “surprise” strategy will work (at least in the short term). But other scholars in this field have plausible doubts.<\/p>\n

Truthfully, I’m hoping one of you will know the “don’t invoke prior misconceptions!” research pool and point it out to me. If\/when that happens, I’ll share it with you.<\/p>\n

TL;DR<\/h2>\n

This study suggest that asking students to make predictions based on their prior misconceptions increases their surprise when those misconceptions are contradicted by experience.<\/p>\n

And: that feeling of suprise helps them learn a correct conception — at least in the field of science.<\/p>\n

However, I myself am not fully persuaded by this approach. I’ll keep a lookout for other studies in the field, and share them with you.<\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

Theobald, M., & Brod, G. (2021). Tackling scientific misconceptions: The element of surprise.\u00a0Child Development<\/i>,\u00a092<\/i>(5), 2128-2141.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes teaching is challenging. And sometimes, it’s REALLY challenging. For instance: Because I’m an English teacher, I want my students to know the word “bildungsroman.” (It means, “a novel of character formation.”\u00a0Their Eyes Were Watching God\u00a0depicts Janie’s formation as a complete person — so, it’s a bildungsroman.) Alas, students find tha word to be disturbingly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":7365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[213],"class_list":["post-7360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lb-blog","tag-prior-misconceptions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7360"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7369,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7360\/revisions\/7369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.braindevs.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}