Chronology Current Month Current Thread Current Date
[Year List] [Month List (current year)] [Date Index] [Thread Index] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Prev] [Date Next]

Re: Ideocosmology




Serious mode ON: Any hints on interactivity strategies that instructors
can deal with equably?

Whatcott Altus

Over the last few years I have been experimenting with a locally developed
approach which continues to show some promise.
The system is called conceptual mediation. The basis of it is that students
hanging on to "alternative concepts" (like when you take air out of a room
things become weightless) do so because of an innate process of mental
protection, in the jargon of the field it is called proactive inhibition.
To sidestep the protections they have for their concepts it is necessary
for them to take up, as a cyclic process, three different perspectives. The
first is their understanding of a concept, the second is that offered by
physics and the third is that of an observer of both conceptions who has to
pick differences between the "old way" of thinking and the "new
way"..physics.
It is this third setp which produces the most surprising learnings. I am
convinced that for a lot of students, when we explain a physics concept
they actually only hear enough to support their misconception, knowing with
certainty that the rest is just some unnecessary distraction by those who
want to be too technical. It's the brain's way of saying, "trust me, you
know this stuff". When they are engaged in the process of mediating between
concepts they suddenly get the news that what is being presented is
actually different.
If the three stage cycle is run through between three and five times, each
time picking a new difference, they tend to internalise the new description
very well and drop their remembering of their old way of thinking.
The big problem with this system is that it takes heaps of time, unless the
students learn the mediation process and when to use it.
I've tended to compact the process by teaching my students the most
favoured misconceptions first then the physics concept and engaging them in
a dialog about the differences. This I have found to be pretty entertaining
and moderately successful. Sorry, no statistics on it's success, I've never
had the time.
I present this only as an interesting approach.

Regards Scott.