Misconceptions and New Ideas

Social Studies for Secondary Schools: Teaching to Learn, Learning to Teach by Alan J. Singer: Chapter 3 (What is Social Studies?)

"How a Primary Teacher Protects the Coherence of Her Social Studies Lessons" by Janet Alleman, Jere Brophy, and Barbara Knighton. Social Studies and the Young Learner 21 (2).



The chapter "What is Social Studies?" was not the most exciting course reading I have completed, but I was interested in reading some of the sample lesson ideas at the end of each tidbit on the discipline. The reading provided an overview on what the social sciences are and what disciplines make up the social sciences. The meat of the chapter really explores each discipline and makes suggestions for lessons. I'm glad I read it as it provided me with new ideas, but it didn't provide me with a ton of new knowledge.

The article "How a Primary Teacher Protects the Coherence of Her Social Studies Lessons" is about Barbara Knighton and her elementary classroom, but I still find it to be relevant to secondary education. One paragraph stuck with me on how Barbara approaches teaching social studies in her classroom. She sticks to a big idea and will begin by "defining it carefully and explaining several of its prototypical examples or application" before digging deeper and getting it in students minds fully (28). Once she is sure that students have grasped the main idea, then she will present misconceptions and anomalies, because at that point she is sure that they can handle the information that initially could have thrown them completely off track. She will bring in an anomaly earlier only if she believes that a student will bring it up so that it will be presented in a way that will not disrupt the rest of their learning, as it might if a student brought it up and it took a strange course (29). This reading also looked at how to create coherence across lessons so that students may connect the big ideas. Barbara looked to help students organize their thoughts and knowledge by using repetition, foreshadowing upcoming lessons, revisiting lessons that they already had to connect the knowledge and ideas, and connecting it all to their lives.

Two things I want to remember

One thing I don't want to forget is this quote and statistic: "One study found that 25 percent of the curriculum-related ideas that stuck in students' minds had been verbalized by a classmate rather than the teacher, and many of these ideas were distorted or even wholly incorrect" (Alleman, Brophy, & Knighton, 29). This is super important because it makes it even more important in our planning process to consider some of the misunderstandings that students may bring. While we may not be prepared for them all, having an idea of what questions or potentially incorrect statements that may be made will give us a better opportunity to correct the misconceptions before students get the wrong ideas in their head.

The way that Geography is presented in the Signer chapter is something I don't want to forget. In my mind, I have always thought of geography as just studying maps and understanding how to locate different places, people, and things. This chapter presented how geography has changed recently, though, and it opened my mind up a little bit on how our lessons could be shaped differently. Connecting geography to current environmental crises could help with engagement and really provide a purpose with a geography lesson. My lessons in geography were always boring, so this reading helped open my eyes to new possibilities on bringing the geography into the lesson without really being the base of it.

One controversial idea or disagreement

I had to disagree with a part of addressing a misconception. It expressed that sometimes it's best to bury the misconception that you may have presented because it was said in passing or was brief. To some extent, I can understand it. On the other hand, I personally feel like I would rather spend the thirty seconds to elaborate and correct my statement just to be safe rather than potentially having to correct myself down the road when I've fostered a misconception because I thought they wouldn't really notice it.

One question I still have

This is a question that I know we will address in class soon, but I still want to know and understand strategies for dealing with misconceptions a bit better. Is it really a valid idea to bury the misconception and hope that it was not noticed if it was small? But what is the best way to stop yourself and call yourself out on saying the wrong thing or giving the wrong idea without losing too much class time by addressing it?