Creating “Cognitive Conflict”
When I teach Indices I
usually give this sort of worksheet. Which I think is ok, I have insisted that
they must show their working and by the end I can gauge whether the student
understands the concept or not.
After hearing Dr Malcolm
Swan talk about “creating conflict", I wondered what that would look like
in practice. I then came across this absolute cracker from Andrew Stadel (@mr_stadel)on his blog. Andrew gave them this worksheet (below) in which all the
questions have been answered incorrectly. When I initially looked at this
I did think this was not as powerful as a worksheet mixed with correct and
incorrect answers. The richness of this activity is because all of the answers
are common misconceptions and as Dylan Wiliams said: "good feedback causes
thinking" I think the same
applies to questions - "A good question causes thinking".
After hearing Malcolm Swan
speak about “creating conflict”, I believe this hits the spot and it places the
student on the back foot and creates conflict.
For many students when they
see:
Question 1, creates
conflict with many students because they believe it to be correct, when I am
adamant that none of the answers are correct - let the battle commence!
Suddenly between the two students they start making suggestions as to what it
could be.
Another favourite of mine is question 5. This is a classic misconception that exposes students who do not have an understanding that the power of a half is the same as the square root.
One question which caused a
lot of discussion among the mathematics teachers I showed this to was question
3.
Some teachers were not
happy with this question, which to me means it is causing conflict with them,
and therefore likely to cause discussion within the classroom.
How do I use it?
I believe the activity works best in pairs with the
sheet printed and laminated with a set of post-it notes. I like students to
work together so they can share solutions, argue in more logical and in
reasoned ways which allows them access to mathematics and to take more
ownership. It’s much more fun to try to think and reach solutions
collaboratively so students don’t feel so isolated and are less
likely to think of the task as a threatening business.
The post-it notes allow me to see which students are
making progress, and which students might need some support. It allows me to
check their reasoning, and also to share best practice with the class.
After they have completed the activity - I then ask
them to write up the correct method and answer in their exercise book.
I write this blog and @robertkaplinsky throws this into the mix, another great idea, something else to try out.
