Recommendation 2
Stress Conceptual Understanding Rather than mere Knowledge of Procedures
Statistics 6070
Ryan Shannon
Recommendation 2: Issues in Assessing Conceptual Understanding in Probability and Statistics
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This article had a lack of problems but instead a focus on how to learn. Through showing that students enter a course with the wrong intuitions, these intuitions are hard to break, and then students hold many clashing intuitions. All of these are what makes conceptual understanding just as important as knowing how to calculate problems. Starting with students have theories of their own, even we a instruction otherwise. This is an inner intuition that comes from seeing the future from the given. This could also happen from when taking a multiple choice exam and thinking the next answer will be B seeing that no B has been used in the last ten answers. The example in the article paragraph 4 is another example. Students know that all are equally likely but a fair distribution seems more likely.
As Konold moves into the next section I He addresses the “know-nothing” in paragraph 15. Knowledge could be processed form a teacher into a memory bank, or be a extra bit added to an already existing memory bank. Here he addresses that students don’t remember anything from the pervious mathematics course that they had in the previous semester. Here too he notes that each student will hold strong to their intuitions even after instructions. He brings such an idea to light in figure 5. By showing a tiny margin of change at 6%.
Lastly, Konold briefs on students that have a clashing belief about situations. This is the portion with too the conclusion paragraph that I found to be most useful. Here are notes that students can reproduce an idea that is taught but not fully grasping the concept. This to me is the “Monkey-see Monkey-do” way to learn. He addresses in paragraph 23 that quizzes and tests are not the best from of proving conceptual change. That he would pose questions that were not administered pre- or post-lecture.
This article however not very useful in the classroom, as I see students telling me I shouldn’t give them tests, it is very useful for an educator. Many times we’re faced to pass and exam and forget the importance of make sure students conceptually know the topic to apply its importance on real life. This article is a great reminder of “the equation is not the most important idea.” I agree very much with the idea addressed in the article and too a reminder as when I teach what I should expect and focus on when teaching.