Alan November's introductory keynote began with a question to the audience about where they think the mass of a tree comes from! His audience used voting handsets to make their choice of answer from four options ... A) Sun B) Water C) Air D) Soil The correct answer [option C] was chosen by only a small number within the audience ... reflecting a common misconception that is shared by many, including fresh new biology graduates from Harvard University!
This led Alan into a riveting presentation about how the current model of learning and teaching may well be fostering student misconceptions. Students are capable of memorising information and regurgitating it for tests and examinations etc, but not truly understanding basic concepts. Indeed, it's only by giving students a means to feedback in class regularly, even allowing students to formulate their own questions [part of a re-engineering process to learning] that student understanding improves.
Alan directed his audience towards the work of Professor Eric Mazur, an optical physicist from Harvard University. Upon realising that students in his introductory Physics class were passing exams without understanding fundamental concepts, he developed a variety of interlinking interactive techniques to help rectify this. He required his students to read, think and reflect before their lecture, and then via the course website, to submit questions anonymously, around which he would shape his next lecture.
Some questions where students had little grasp of the reading were inevitably rendered 'useless' ... but others deemed 'brilliant' were those he displayed during the lecture and used as the basis of discussion and debate in the classroom, with the effect that the students helped each other to learn.
Alan finished his session by challenging his audience to participate in action research that would help change practice based on this and similar models, thereby helping misconceptions in learning to avoid going unchecked.
Some useful links:
Introduction to Mazur's work
Presentation: Confessions of a converted lecturer
Follow Eric Mazur on Twitter
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