You’ve
mentioned a subject and now you’re doing an informal formative assessment. You
throw out a question to the class and wait to see who responds. The first
student you ask tells you the correct answer. You are in trouble.
I kid
you not. You need the wrong answer. Really. The correct answer, no matter how
well it is stated or how quickly it is offered, gives you nothing to build on.
It in no way reveals students’ misconceptions. There’s only one way you can
make use of this answer to continue the discussion: fake it.
You
have to say something like this: ‘What if he had answered (fill in the blank
with your own wrong answer)’ or ‘What if he had told me (again, fill in the
blank).’ Neither of these will ever have the power of the wrong answer. Neither
of these is as effective as dealing with the wrong answer given by a student.
So what
do you do with that wrong answer? Do not correct it! That’s right; don’t tell
the student the right answer. Instead use it to start a dialogue with the
students. That way when they come to realize why that answer was wrong they
will own the knowledge and it will stick with them. If you just correct it and
move on, no one will be the wiser, not even you.
Here’s an example of how I used
this technique many times teaching physics. I introduced physics with a
discussion of frame of reference. I started with a question: ‘Right at this
moment, are you in motion?’ Students would usually say yes, because I am
breathing, my blood is moving, I am moving my hand. Then I qualified my
question by explaining that in physics motion is described as an entire body
moving from one place to another. Students then told me they were not moving.
Next I asked what Earth was doing to create night and day. Of course, they knew
it was because it is spinning on its axis. Again I asked: ‘Are you moving?’ Now
they said yes.
I relied on someone asking, ‘Then
why don’t we feel like we’re moving?’ In a good Socratic manner, I threw the
question right back at them. I was sure that at least one student would tell me
it was because of gravity. I then asked why astronauts in space can float
around. Students knew it was because gravity was not pulling them down. Yet, I
would tell them, astronauts report they have no feeling that the space shuttle
is moving. So is it gravity?
We would go on in that manner until
I would give them a scenario. I chose one student, usually a boy that I needed
to get involved in class, and say, ‘John is the only thing in the whole
universe that has the ability to actually stand still. He decides to exercise
his ability. What will we see him as doing?’
At least on student will tell me
that he will run into the wall. I then ask: ‘In the last split second of his
life, what will John see us as doing?’ Students tell me he will see us as
moving away from him. Then I come back with: ‘Who is right? Is he the one
moving or are we?’
Then I could see the light dawn on
students and one would tell me: ‘We don’t know we are moving because everything
is moving with us.’ And that is the frame of reference.
When I taught older students,
frequently I would get the last answer first. That made it much more difficult
for me to start the class following my Socratic questioning that was designed
to get them to recognize that we are all in motion all the time because we are
on Earth.
I had to have all those ‘wrong’
answers in order to get students to confront the fallacies of their thinking
and lead them to the ‘correct’ answer. Immediate ‘right’ answers made my task
so much harder.
Remember that the next time you
feel you’ve got troubles because a student gave the wrong answer. Use it wisely
and it will be your best friend.
No comments:
Post a Comment