Research on Hidden Thermal Energy Scenarios

Amy and I met today to talk about a paper we will be writing together. We discussed several possibilities but settled on a paper focusing on hidden energy scenarios.

The practice of listening to student ideas.

In the teaching seminar we are trying to support one another in the practice of writing down specific student ideas that are raised in our classrooms. I think that effective practice will involve attending to the difficulties associated with attending to student ideas. The following is a list of my thoughts about student ideas and the challenges associated with attending to their ideas.

• When students attempt to express sophisticated scientific ideas they will often be difficult to understand. The idea itself may be clear for the student even if they have difficulty putting it into words. We should practice listening for the underlying idea.
• Student ideas will often include strengths and weaknesses. We should practice listening for the underlying strengths in student ideas. We should also be attentive to weaknesses which might interfere with the students ability to make progress with the idea.
• Student ideas will often appear very problematic because they are using scientific words in a manner which is inconsistent with established scientific definitions. We should practice listening through incorrect or inconsistent language to understand the underlying idea.
• Student ideas can also appear more complete than they are when students use scientific words in a manner which is consistent with established scientific definitions. We should practice listening for evidence of the meaning that students assign to the words they use.
• Students can demonstrate strong scientific reasoning in support of an incorrect conclusion. We should resist the temptation to evaluate the reasoning process according to the correctness of the conclusion.
• Teachers, myself included, will usually be attending to student discourse from the perspective of our instructional objectives. We should resist the temptation to evaluate student ideas based on whether the idea fits with our intended conceptual story.