Bruer, 1993

From Eduwiki

(Amy Murphy)

== Schools for Thought Science: Inside the Black Box – Bruer ==

Chapter 5 of Schools for Thought examines how naïve theories can control our reasoning about the physical world. Bruer discusses that even in infancy we are starting to develop ideas about how the world around us works. However, these ideas are not always correct and as we mature they will often become cemented into our schema as misconceptions. Bruer grouped people as either “naïve” or “expert” based upon their problem solving behavior. Experts will look at the big picture and incorporate all of their knowledge in order to solve physics problems, while the novice will work backwards from the desired answer and then try to plug in the theories and ideas that have been memorized.

Traditional science education makes does not do a good job of changing students’ misconceptions. Bruer provides an example of engineering students who were successful science students and had completed two semesters of college physics yet they still held onto their misconceptions and naïve ideas about physics.

Bruer does provide some recommendations for science instruction that can help change students’ misconceptions. Bruer believes that science needs to be taught as a higher order skill, rather than just having students recall basic science facts. Science teachers need to be aware of how memory works and understand that students’ knowledge of science is built upon their prior knowledge and experiences. Bruer also stresses that teachers need to be aware that not all students will come into their classes with the same prior experiences and backgrounds. To address students’ misconceptions teachers should provide lots of activities that allow children to problem solve and develop their own knowledge in order to change their naïve theories about science.