Welcome to the All Star Planning podcast. My name is Kelsey, and this is the place where I talk all things teacher lesson plans. Today, I am talking about misconceptions your students have.
This is something that you certainly will get better at as your teaching career progresses. But the idea is that you are going to look for problems that your students are going to have before they actually have them.
Addressing Misconceptions
So for me, this is something like, um, in my acid-base unit. The very first day of acid base, I explained to my students what an acid is, what a base is. And I know from experience that there will be a kid who thinks that acids are more dangerous than bases.
Using a Real World Example
So for those of you who don’t know, and acid would be something like lemon juice or vinegar or things that are typically kind of sour tasting. And bases are things like soap and bleach. Things that are bitter tasting. We’ve all gotten to open our mouths, either on purpose or by accident. It’s not a fun time. It tastes pretty disgusting. So that is kind of the baseline for how I explain what the difference is between an acid and a base in real life, in the real world. Cause it’s tiny bit different from how a chemist would define it.
There will always be a kid who thinks that acids are more dangerous than bases. And that idea typically comes from media. The kid will think, they get the idea from like a villain dropping the good guy into a vat of acid, right? Acids are certainly dangerous, some more dangerous than others, but bases could also be equally dangerous.
So I explain this to them. And this is me clearing up a misconception before it even crosses their mind. So I will say to the kids “acids and bases, one is not more dangerous than the other. They are equally dangerous.” And we kind of talk about those details as we move further into the unit, but I preface it right off the bat before they even get a chance to create the misconception in their brain or to bring the misconception to the front of their brain.
How do I address misconceptions if I don’t know what they are?
And this is really hard to do as a teacher. The more you teach, the better you get at it. And the more questions your students ask, the better you get at it.
So I can remember when I was a student in physics, I would ask so many questions. And it was really just, I didn’t understand physics or I wanted to have a better understanding of physics. Um, a lot of the questions I wound up asking were above a high school curriculum. And it was like, we were talking about gravity, right? So I had asked, if, what the superheroes do, like somebody falls off of a building, right? And then the superhero jumps off the building and they kind of nose dive a little bit. I was asking if that would reduce air resistance so they could actually move faster because the superheroes’ not flying, they’re really falling. And I would ask all these kind of somewhat outrageous questions.
But what this did for my physics teacher was that it gave him a big pool or a big supply of thoughts that were running through the heads of his students.
Asking questions to uncover misconceptions
The more that the kids talk to you about what they don’t understand and the questions that they have, the bigger your pool of knowledge gets. So for me I try to incorporate these misconceptions into my lesson plans and fix them right away. Because what happens is you will have a kid who has this in their brain, but then they won’t ask the question. So it never gets cleared up for them. And that could be kind of terrible.
The trouble with not addressing misconceptions
It’s terrible because they’re not asking you the question for who knows why, but they’re not getting the correct answer, which is not good. So if you can anticipate the errors that they’re going to have, the misconceptions and misunderstandings, the things that could potentially divert their learning, you correct them before they happen? Good. You fixed it. You solve the problem before there was ever a problem.
Now what you need in order to do this: is a good base of questions or a climate of trust, honesty, self-assessment where kids are willing to ask you questions. In podcast episode 11 I talk about how I build a climate of self assessment and this has helped me dramatically.
Student Self Consciousness and Asking Questions
I also think that if you have some difficulty in getting your kids to talk to you or, you know, kids. Kids think that everybody thinks that they are looking at them. For instance, if they had, um, a bad hair day, they think everybody in the entire building is looking at their bad hair, right? Nobody cares. But they think like, “oh, if I ask a question in chemistry, everyone’s going to think that I’m dumb.” Or it snowballs, especially in high school. Um, just the, the idea of judgment. So, there are kids who will never ask a question simply because of their own personal factors.
How to uncover your students’ misconceptions
There are some teachers who do it so well where their exit ticket is, “what is a question you still have about today?” And then they take them and they collect them and they write them down and they will turn those into misconceptions that they address in their lesson before they happen.
You can do the same thing with an anonymous question box. I know there’s a lot of health teachers that tend to do this. Um, I personally, don’t really like the idea of anonymous things, but if you’re cool with that, that’s another option.
And you just kind of collect these questions and the things that the kids don’t understand and write them down. I’m telling you, write them down. If you write them down, then you can not forget them. And then you can address them in your lessons as they come up.
Misconceptions in a Lesson Plan
If you are a high school or a middle school teacher, or maybe even elementary, I know they’re moving more into, uh, like specialized teaching and moving between teachers or classrooms or whatever. Um, if you are teaching a lesson more than one time a day, the first group of kids are going to be your helpers. And you could even present it as this saying, “oh, you guys are going to be my helpers. You guys are going to help the next group of kids. Tell me all of the questions that you have so I can answer. I’m going to look like a superhero. You guys are gonna help me out so much. I’m going to answer all of the questions you guys have for them before they even get a chance to ask them.”
Get your students to uncover their own misconceptions for you
Especially, if you have kids who are looking for attention. This is perfect because they will solve the problem for you. I don’t think we’re using kids to their full potential – I honestly wholeheartedly believe this.
I did the same thing my very first year of teaching: I would just ask, “do you have a question?” Nobody would raise their hand. I have rephrased that into, “tell me the questions you have.” Like I’m demanding questions out of them. That has actually increased the number of questions I get asked, “tell me the questions you have.”
Give kids credit for the questions they ask
And then third. I now present it as “help me help you, help me help the kids that come next. Let me make you the superstar.” So I’ll say, “Oh my goodness. Sally had an amazing question and none of you people asked it. So I’m going to answer it for you because I’m sure that you have this question.” I do that all the time. I whispered that because it’s a secret – I do that all the time. I give kids credit when they ask me questions and you tell em “oh my goodness, that’s an excellent question. I have never thought about it that way. Thank you for asking that question.” And when you create this climate of, “I love your questions. Ask me questions.”
Even if it’s like a “quiz me”, I dare you to quiz me on acids and bases. I dare you to quiz me on long division.” The kids will rise to the occasion and you will have such a beautiful collection of questions and misunderstandings that they have. And this will turn you into a rockstar teacher because you get to address misunderstandings before they happen. And it even has gotten to the point in a few of my lessons with a few of my kids where I will say, “and just in case you were wondering, blah, blah, blah” and the kid goes, “no way you read my mind!” That’s how, you know, things are going well. That is how, you know, when the kid thinks that you are a mind reader addressing questions that they have, you know, you’ve made it.
Fixing errors before they even happen
So misconceptions, very important to incorporate into your lessons because it fixes errors before they happen. And you can get all those misconceptions. One with experience and two, by getting your kids to ask questions.
So that is all I have for you for today. Hope you enjoyed it. Please make sure to subscribe to the podcast. So you don’t miss any of my tips. New episodes come out every Tuesday. And if you haven’t already please sign up for the All Star Planning, introductory masterclass. It is where I talk to you about how my five pieces of the all-star planning method come together. It’s a curriculum writing spiel. When your curriculum is in order, your lesson plans are easy. Life is easy.
You’re a happier teacher and you can spend more time doing the things that you want to, not the things that you have to. Because the things you have to, are already done. So you can find that masterclass at plan.kelseyreavy.com. If you are watching this on YouTube, I have linked it in the video description. And if you are listening to this, I’ve linked it in the show notes.
And that is all. I’ll see you in the next one. Happy planning.
