7.1: Overcoming confirmation bias can be a difficult process. In your own words, define confirmation bias and recall a time in your own experience in which you have overcome this phenomenon.
7.2: What are some common misconceptions for children in your licensure area? How can you as a teacher design creative ways to rectify these misconceptions?
7.1)In my own words, confirmation bias occurs when people favor information that confirms their beliefs. In other words, a person can deliberately choose what information they pay attention to and that which they choose to ignore. In this way, confirmation bias to me, is a form of stereotype. In my own recent experience, I have had to overcome the bias that tends to follow me because I am in a sorority. Often I think that the stereotype of a "typical sorority girl" is negative. I have heard a variety of things to label girls that are in sororities, especially things along the line of beauty over brains. It has proven true at this university though that the girls in sororities have the highest GPAs of all girls on campus, but I often have to prove myself in order for people to see this. Also sororities get a bad rap for girls that care so much about appearance, but to me that is more of a type of professionalism.
ReplyDelete7.2) This is a GREAT one for my area of licensure. With special education kids get hit by confirmation bias all of the time! A child is in special education...well they must be stupid right? Wrong. Children in special education are just different thinkers than the majority and often they are brilliant compared to that majority, but the typical school system is not designed for those students to showcase their talents. I think that as a teacher either in the general education classroom or in a resource room I will strive to design activities that showcase my students' individual skills as a way to advocate their uniqueness. I also think that informing the public and the community through proven research is another way to break that bias. Another bias that I know I will encounter working in Roane county has to do with dialects. Just because a child speaks using a dialect that include the word, "ain't" or other of that mature, does not mean they are incompetent in English grammar...they are just using the type of language that they know.
Matthew:
I think that you followed Bloom's Taxonomy well. The first question was more direct, while the other was open-ended and allowed me to apply my thinking.
7.1) Confirmation bias is when people choose to believe information that supports their own personal beliefs and ignore information that contradicts those beliefs. In my own experience I had a very basic view of World War II when I was younger. I saw the Nazis as the bad guys and the Americans as the good guys. While a summary of the war could still end with this result, it doesn't take into account the factors of the interwar period that led to WWII or the other nations involved. Through high school and college I had to study the war through various lenses, including from the German side. I learned the significance the Soviet victory at Stalingrad played and how without it the U.S. may not have been successful opening up the Western Front.
ReplyDelete7.2) There are often so many misconceptions students have with social studies. Some are simple and easy to rectify, like explaining that the French and Indian War was not a war between the French and Native Americans, but instead a conflict between the British and French where the French army had support from Native Americans in the colonies. Explaining even further that this war is actually a part of the much larger and more global Seven Years War will help fix this misconception for students (I know it worked for me). Another misconception that I have noticed is general stereotypes against people from the Middle East and Middle Eastern culture. A way I would try to fix this is by constructing a lesson dealing with cultural contributions throughout history. Using images like the Alhambra in Spain for architecture and examples from math, science and literature I would ask the students to identify what culture these examples originated from. Learning how many western philosophies and styles came from the Middle East would hopefully change the way students viewed this area.
The first question did a great job of simply identifying and defining a concept, but then to also really apply it to yourself and do some self-analyzation. The second question forced me to think hard not only ways to rectify student misconception, but also for good examples of misconceptions. Fortunately there are a lot in social studies as students tend to have a more one-sided than balanced view of the world.
7.1:
ReplyDeleteI think that having a confirmation bias is very common and probably one of the more difficult things to overcome when it comes to learning --Even for adults, perhaps even more so. When we feel confident that we know something well, I think it is easy to close ourselves off to any new information that might threaten to change our adopted perceptions. Therefore, when new information is presented to us, we look for information that fits into that mold, and overlook or reject information that may discredit or challenge our current beliefs. I have often experienced confirmation bias. When writing a paper about a subject felt strongly about, I caught myself disregarding information that different from my opinion I wanted to express.
7.2:
A common misconception in elementary school is:
We experience seasons because of the earth's changing distance from the sun (closer in the summer, farther in the winter). To show the students that the real reason for the seasons is the tilt of the Earth I could do several different activities, depending on the age of my students. I found a nice webquest http://mrscienceut.net/SeasonsWebQuest.html that has links to several interactive diagrams, including links to popular Astronomy websites, suitable for kids. Or, using a foam ball, one marker, one flashlight, and two pushpins (for each group) I could have one child hold the foam all that represents Earth and have them draw a circle around its middle to represent the equator, as well as dots for the North and South pole. One student would place a pushpin, representing a person, midway between the Equator and the North Pole, and another between the Equator and South Pole (on the same side of the Earth) I would them tell them the Earth moves around the sun in a circular orbit and is tilted on its axis and that as Earth orbits the sun, it rotates on its axis--which is always pointed in the same direction. I would then turn off the lights, and have one student point the flashlight at the "Earth" while the student holding the Earth walks in a circle around the sun. This would be a great activity to get students talking about the reason for the seasons and help them see how the tilt of the Earth's axis affects the way we experience seasons in different hemispheres.
I liked your questions Matt! It helped me a lot to think about confirmation bias and how COMMON it really is. I think being aware of it and that it exists is probably the best way to address it. In my example, once I was aware that I was only seeking opinions that matched mine, I had to take a step back and try to make sure I was getting BOTH sides equally.
I think your first question, a lower order question, corresponded with knowledge and comprehension. I think your second question, a higher-order thinking question incorporated Application, Analysis and Synthesis.