Sweater Article

I loved the preconceived notions of the students about sweaters emitting heat. As the article states in the beginning, the children's experience with winters for the past 9 years has been their sole source of knowledge about how sweaters, hats, and blankets hold heat. I think the teacher did a great job guiding the students throughout their experiments with heat. The teacher had the students put the thermometer in the warm clothing and when the temperature didn't change after 15 minutes she could have simply told the students that warm clothing does not give off heat. Instead, she feed off of the insistent disbelief of her students. If the student's alternative views of this scientific principle was not addressed, they could have coexisted with "what the teacher told us" and created a mishmash of fact and fiction. "Children who are not often asked their opinions are especially reluctant to admit the errors in their thinking and will find ways to adjust old ideas before assimilating new ones." (37)


As a future teacher, I can actively promote new thinking patterns for my students through a variety of methods. First, I will stress relevance of my lessons. This way the students won't see lessons learned as just "stuff they learned in school." Second, I think that it is important to have my students make predictions, that way I can have some idea of what misunderstandings they may have and address those if needed. The only problem I see with this approach of teacher is running out of time. I think letting the students explore science on their own is a great idea, the consumption of time is the only thing that concerns me.