Evidence, Models, and Explanation Concepts
Initial perceptual naive misconceptions (any age)
Misconceptions
Beginning (preschool - 7 years)
Concepts
Evidence
- Observation helps understand interactions and predict changes.
- Pictures and drawings can be used to represent features of objects being described.
- An object's motion can be described by tracing and measuring its position over time.
Models
- Models are structures that are similar to real objects in some ways.
- Models may be missing detail, different size, or not able to do all of the same things.
- A model though different from the real thing can be used to learn something about the real thing.
- One way to describe something is to say how it is like another thing.
Explanations
- Explanations tell how something does what it does.
- One way to describe something is to say how it is like something else.
- People are more likely to believe your ideas if you give good reasons for them.
- One way to understand something is to think how it is like something else.
- Strong feelings can affect a person's reasoning.
- How do I know is a good question to ask to try and understand what is or has happened.
Intermediate (7 years - 11 years)
Concepts
Evidence
- Evidence is something that is observed and can be used to understand what is happening and make predictions about future changes.
- Observation and inference are different.
- Pictures and textual information can be used as evidence, but is secondary and one should be skeptical about it as evidence without first hand observations.
Models
- Models are structures that correspond to real objects, events, or classes of events.
- Seeing how a model changes may suggest how the real thing works if the same were done to it.
- Geometric figures, number sequences, graphs, diagrams, sketches, number lines, maps, and stories can be used to represent objects, events, and processes in the real world.
- Such representations can never be exact in every detail.
- Models help people understand how things work.
Explanations
- Explanations are based on observation derived from experience or experimentation and are understandable.
- Reasonable conclusions can be made when a rule that always holds is related to good information about a particular situation.
- If then logic. (If a plants are green and this is green, then it is a plant. If John is not a plant and he paints himself green he will not be a plant.)
- Reasoning by similarities can suggest ideas but can't prove them.
- Practical reasoning may require several steps.
- People can invent a rule to explain something by summarizing observations.
- People tend to over generalize (imagine general rules based on a few observations).
- Sometimes people use incorrect logic when they make a statement such as If A is true, then B is true. But A isn't true, therefore B isn't true.
- A single example can never prove something true.
- Sometimes a single example can prove something is not true.
- An analogy has some likeness and some differences.
- I can check my ideas in books and see if other people have the same ideas as I do.
- Some tests are not fair if all variables are not kept the same.
- I should always seek good reasons for what I think is happening.
- A good way to know something is to try it out. An inference is an explanation based on observation.
Literate (11+)
Concepts
Evidence
- Evidence is something that is observed and can be used to understand what is happening and make predictions about future changes in natural and designed systems.
Models
- Models are structures that correspond to real objects, events, or classes of events that have explanatory and predictive power (physical objects, plans, mental constructs, mathematical equations, computer simulations...).
- Models can be used to think about events or processes that happen very slow, fast, or on a too small or large scale to change easily or safely.
- Mathematical models can be displayed on computers and changed to see what happens.
- Different models can represent the same thing.
- The kind of model and its complexity depend on the purpose of using the model.
- A model that is too limited or complicated may not be useful.
Explanations
- Explanations use scientific knowledge and new evidence from observation or models to create a consistent logical hypothesis, model, law, principle, theory, or paradigm.
- I should be skeptical of any claim that is not based on verifiable observable data and reason not presented in a logical manner.
- I should be skeptical on conclusions that have been based on small samples of data, biased collect or reasoning, or experiments where there was no control.
- There may always be more than one good way to interpret a given set of data. Analogy can be misleading and wrong.
Dr. Robert Sweetland's notes
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