One year teaching at Scottsdale Community College. My main area of interest for research is student misconceptions in science.
Misconceptions are difficult to replace.
Research indicates that setting up a disequilibrium in the student's mind is one method of forcing the student to rethink their conception. My research focuses on determining common misconceptions, constructing diagnostic tools for revealing misconceptions, and attempting to find methods of teaching that affect the number of misconceptions held by students. I have looked at analogies as a way to reduce misconceptions. A second area of interest to me is the laboratory as a learning environment. I have used some cooperative discovery labs in teaching and would like to develop more that are appropriate for the college level.