Chapter 6, page 117
-When students lack consistent schemas, fail to activate schemas, or activate inappropriate or
inaccurate schemas, it hinders learning because students lack a framework to help them organize
what they are learning.Consistent prior conceptions without schemas
-People can use consistent prior conceptions to understand new situations, even when they lack a
schema for the situation.
Implications for instruction
-Implications for instruction include: Teachers should help students activate prior conceptions,
teach students to activate prior conceptions on their own, provide relevant instruction when students
lack sufficient prior conception, and teach generally useful schemas.ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTIONS
-Alternative conceptions are prior conceptions that are inconsistent with the teachers’ target conceptions.
How alternative conceptions emerge
-Learners develop alternative conceptions because they are actively trying to make sense of what
they know. Alternative conceptions frequently do a good job of explaining what learners know about
the world.
Are learners’ alternative conceptions coherent?
-It appears that whether or not learners’ alternative conceptions are coherent depends on the topic.
Even when students lack coherent alternative conceptions, these conceptions can interfere with
learning.The importance of understanding students’ alternative conceptions
-It is helpful for teachers to address common alternative conceptions so as to draw students’
attention to the differences between their conceptions and the target conceptions and to meet their
students’ needs.
Alternative conceptions can interfere with both understanding and belief
-Alternative conceptions can interfere with learning by making it difficult for students to understand
new ideas or by making it difficult for them to believe new ideas, even when they understand the
ideas.
Implications for instruction
-When students have alternative conceptions, learning involves conceptual change, which means
that students must develop new conceptions that are very different from their current conceptions.
-Three instructional techniques that can encourage conceptual change are to provide clear,
unambiguous explanations, to explicitly note common alternative conceptions, and to provide
evidence.NOVICE CONCEPTIONS
-When students are still beginners on a certain topic and hold immature conceptions about that topic, they
are said to hold novice conceptions; these novice conceptions differ notably from expert conceptions.
Few concepts that are poorly interconnected
-One way in which novice conceptions differ from expert conceptions is that novice conceptions are
much less extensive and interconnected than expert conceptions.