Interview With Student Misconceptions

The student who I interviewed had a lot of different misconceptions, and she did not have one solid idea about what was living and what was not. Her rules and reasoning varied depending on each item. Her misconceptions are not consistent, which leads me to believe that she has no real background knowledge on the subject. For example, she told me that rocks are living because people drive on gravel roads. This to me means that she associates rocks with humans and since humans are living, so are rocks. She also told me that a feather is living because it is on a bird. However, she told me that an egg is not living, so she has some inconsistencies in her rules. When I asked her to describe to me how she decided what was living and what was not …show more content…
In order to expel a student’s misconception it is beneficial for them to learn through inquiry. To begin to help the students dispel the misconception I would start by with the engage phase. In the engage phase I would show the students a bunch of pictures on living and non-living things. Then I would ask them if the object is living or non-living. I will let them discuss their answers. Then I will make a list on the board on the reasoning behind what they consider living. For the explore phase I will have the students pick different objects and have them go through the list we just created. The students will check off if the object meets the requirements and then they will decide if it is living or not and share their answer with their table group. For the explain phase we will learn the actual definition for living and non-living things. For the elaborate phase we will read the book What’s Alive? By Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld. As I am reading, I will make an anchor chart listing all of the living things, and what they have in common. Then to evaluate I will have the students do a sort in their science journals. One page will have pictures that they can glue of living things, and the other page will have pictures that they can glue of non-living things. To make sure the students understand make a chart with all of the characteristics of a living thing and then put pictures of different objects on the side. Then go through each characteristic and write yes or no for each of the characteristics. Then the student will decide if the object is living based on if it meets all of the characteristics. The sort will be graded and if they only misplace two items then they have reached mastery. The best way to teach students about what is living and what is non-living is by providing them with a clear-cut idea of the characteristics of living things. Since living