Jan 23
Posted: under Uncategorized.
Student Interviews conducted by the ASSET test development reveals student ideas on the water cycle and evaporation. Watch the video below and share your comments
Common Misconceoptions:
“The whole water cycle is called evaporation”
“Evaporation can happen only in the rivers and seas”
“Drying and evaporation are different”
Click here to participate in the teacher’s contest.
Dec 29
Posted: under Uncategorized.
We asked a lot of students from the asked to around 2000 students from Urdu and Telugu medium schools. ‘Subtract 26 from 51’
Watch the video to see what students had to say…
Some responses that we received were:
Some students think the answer is 5. In this case they think that 1 can be subtracted from 6 to give 5, but 5 cannot be subtracted from 2 so they must write 0 there. In this case the answer would be 05.
Another set of students said the answer could be 25. Here students think that 1 can be subtracted from 6 to give 5, but since 5 cannot be subtracted from 2, 2 is written as it is to give 25.
Some others think that the answer is 24. 5 cannot be subtracted from 2, 1 is borrowed from 6. As a result, at the tens place it would be 12 -5 and at the ones place, 5-1. But students by incorrectly calculate it as 24 instead of 74.
In our view, As seen from the various responses above, it seems that at a very early age, students start forming algorithms, to solve certain problems, in their minds. The more important part, a correct understanding, seems to be missing and hence they come up with various wrong answers. We need to be aware of such difficulties students face in understanding these basic concepts.
We encourage you to try some of these out and share your experience with us.
Nov 07
Posted: under Teaching.
Tags: alternate conceptions, children, education, learning, maths, misconceptions, student, thoughts, understanding
Every student has a unique way of thinking, learning and making sense of what he/she hears or sees. Their active imagination is constantly building new connections and assimilating new information. Research shows that these thought processes contribute to how a child learns. However, some faulty ideas can lead to several learning gaps. These learning gaps need to be identified, questioned and corrected before they result into what are called alternate conceptions or misconceptions.
Educational Initiatives and Wirpo Applying Thought in School will be launching a Video Series on the Student Misconceoptions on the 29th of November 2008.
Do leave your comments about this video and watch out for this space for more videos.
