Overcoming Teacher Misconceptions

As I was researching teacher misconceptions, I came upon this Ted Talk by Jonathan Drori. He goes into an explanation of why adults don’t necessarily know as much as we think we do. His main focus is on four different questions that most individuals might find very difficult to answer or might answer incorrectly. Throughout his presentation, there were a couple of interesting points that he made. One would be that seven year olds tend to answer these four questions better than adults because they rely on their experiences and common sense. He also states that in some studies students actually did worse on an assessment after schooling than before they even came to school. Drori states towards the end of his talk that, children and adults should fiddle with things both physically and mentally, because it is an essential part of learning.


http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_drori_on_what_we_think_we_know.html

I also like this quote he discussed in his talk: “Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out.” – Thomas Cardinal Wolsey

I think that this quote is very true, especially when discussing misconceptions. Since they are rooted in the brain, it is very hard for an individual to just change what they believe is true.

Teacher misconceptions need to be addressed before even attempting to teach that topic to their students. Eliminating misconceptions for adults is very similar to how students overcome theirs. The only difference is that teachers do not normally have someone else to point out/find their misconceptions. Educators should automatically research a topic that they are going to be teaching in order to become an “expert” in that area. In order to find our own misconceptions, adults need to use many scholarly resources (books, journals, websites, etc.) when researching. This allows us to see which information is common to all and if there is any inaccurate information within the source. By doing this, teachers will better understand the material (why something works) versus just understanding how it works.

Once a teacher recognizes a preconception or misconception in their own thinking, they can begin taking the right steps to overcome it. Here are some possible ideas:

• continue researching information on the subject (allows for more evidence)
• creating your own analogies for learning new content properly
• discussing the topics with others around you and experts on the material

When teachers have new, accurate knowledge on a particular topic, they will be able to teach it without passing their former misconceptions on to their students. If one of the students shows the same misconception, the teacher will be able to help the student eliminate it as well.

Resources to look at:

• http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_drori_on_what_we_think_we_know.html
• http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=5287&page=27