A Mind of Our Own and A Private Universe

If you in my cohort haven’t watched these yet, I’d HIGHLY recommend them. They really make you question the assumptions we make about what our students already know when we are instructing them. In A Private Universe, MIT graduates are asked to light a bulb using a wire and a battery. Most cannot. In A Mind of Our Own, high school students are asked why the seasons change and why the moon is sometimes full, crescent, or not appearing at all. They do attempt to answer the questions, but their assumptions are wrong so the results (their answers) are wrong as well.

 

Sometimes I’m honestly baffled as to how I can teach something so thoroughly (in my opinion), and the students have been paying attention as well as 7^th graders ever do, yet the concept, when I ask them about it later, has completely eluded them. I have tried posting the objective every single day in class and talking to them about whether they learned it, I have tried to create better assessments (and their answers are usually right on the day we have the lesson) and many other methods of increasing comprehension, yet certain concepts they just do not understand.

 

One recent example involved teaching the CTE, Intro-Business students how to fill out a job application. We discussed the concepts of it the day before and I told them that they would have to find some references who could vouch for their character and/or their ability to work well. I told them that these references could not be relatives, but rather teachers or scout leaders or people for whom they had worked/volunteered. Due to last year’s experience with this class, I knew that I had to pound this information into their little heads because no one the previous year seemed to grasp the concept that references can’t be relatives.

 

The next day as we were filling out our applications, my first period students asked “Is my mom a reference?” or “Is my aunt a reference?” I was stumped! I looked at the application. Under each reference, it asked for RELATIONSHIP. We probably all know that RELATIONSHIP on a job application means HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS PERSON? To a kid in 7^th grade, however, relationship means someone to whom you are related. They did not identify what I had been talking about at length the day before to what we were doing the current day because of that prior knowledge. To them, I was certainly talking about relatives! That was my first incorrect assumption: My students understand what the word RELATIONSHIP means as it applies to a reference. One thing the videos talk about is that when a student believes something (such as relationship = talking about relatives), it is extremely difficult for them to change that belief/knowledge in their heads. I really need to talk a lot more to them and especially have them talk back to me about this concept of RELATIONSHIP.

 

 My next incorrect assumption: My students know what the word REFERENCE means. All the while I was explaining that a reference had to be someone to whom they were not related, for whom they had worked, etc etc etc; it went in one ear and out the other because for the most part, they had no idea prior knowledge of what a REFERENCE was! If 7^th graders don’t understand a word I use in a sentence, they are likely just going to smile and nod as if they know what I’m talking about, assuming that they will ‘get it’ eventually. I need to tell them what I mean!

 

I have started asking students more questions as we discuss the process of filling out a job application: What is a reference? What do I mean by ‘relationship’? Who would be an acceptable reference? What do references do for you? Why do you need to collect references? Do you think you should ask a reference ahead of time if you can use/him her on your job application? This really cleared up a lot of the misunderstandings, but some of those beliefs are so ingrained that I have to be patient as about three to five students per class ask me the same question: Is my mom a reference? Different types of instruction (discussion with me, discussion in their teams of three to four, and instruction sheets to go along with the application) have helped as well. It’s really no extra time to work out the lesson this way (still one class period), and their results have greatly improved.

 

Again, watch the videos if you get a chance. They’re really enlightening, interesting and entertaining!