During my time here at the University, I have taken classes that were designed to help teachers understand how students learn. In one such class, I was required to team up with another classmate and write a paper on misconceptions that students may have about ecology. I found this to be most useful in preparing lesson plans, because now I have an idea of what to look for. In the past I have done misconception, or alternative conception papers and they have proven to be very helpful in trying to understand where the student's position is concerning the new material. Knowing what your students are thinking is vital in every class, but more so in a science class.
Science is like learning a new language, or exploring a new world.
There are some things that are familiar, but most things are different and new. I helped prepare a misconception paper and lesson plan dealing with Ecology. Both the paper and the lesson plan can be accessed from this page. We hope that you will take the time to look at our work, and maybe even use it. Hopefully, if there is anyone out there searching for ecology misconceptions, they will stumble across mypage or Vanessa's page and read our paper.