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Re: wrong physics explanations-misconceptions



How about my preference - naive ideas?


On Friday, September 20, 2002, at 08:18 AM, danmacisaac wrote:

I would not consider the ether theory, (or even the Ptolemaic
astronomy) to
be misconceptions. At the time, it served a purpose, and it was not
designed
to mislead.

We owe our predecessors some respect. There are some things we accept
now
that will be overturned in a few years, or a few centuries.

...we owe ourselves and our students some respect as well. If we're
continually learning better models of physics, then we may never know
(or teach) anything but "misconceptions". The word "misconceptions"
implies to me that a person's thoughts are "sick" and require "cure",
and denigrates the profound importance of students' initial conceptual
states. Emergent research in science and mathematics teaching suggests
that if we want to radically improve instructional outcomes, we must
elicit student's ideas and accommodate them in our instruction, and we
can't do this for something we don't respect.

I prefer to avoid the word "misconceptions", and attach a certain
suspicion to the insights of those who use the word freely. The
phrases "learner thought" or "student thought" and "student ideas"
usually suffice.

Cheers,

Dan M

Dan MacIsaac, Assistant Professor of Physics, SUNY Buffalo State
College
222 SCIE BSC 1300 Elmwood Ave, Buffalo NY 14222 716-878-3802
macisadl@buffalostate.edu http://PhysicsEd@BuffaloState.edu


Steve Clark, Ph.D.

The box said "Requires Windows 98 or better,"
so I bought a Macintosh.