misconceptions – Adventures in Oceanography and Teaching

Currently reading Orr (1991) on “what is education for?”

mglessmer — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 05:24:39 +0000

In response to my post summarising Biesta’s purpose of education, my friend Terese sent me a speech David Orr gave in 1990 with a very similar vibe. Even though the details of the situation have changed since 1990 (and very much not for the better), the overall message is still as relevant now as it […]

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“Wonder questions” and geoscience misconceptions.

mglessmer — Tue, 01 Jun 2021 15:12:21 +0000

Recently, as part of the CHESS/iEarth Summer School, Kikki Kleiven lead a workshop on geoscience teaching. She gave a great overview over how to approach teaching and presented many engaging methods (like, for example, concept cartoons and role plays), but two things especially sparked my interest, so that I read up on them a little […]

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A common misconception in rotating tank experiments, and one way of maybe not reinforcing it

mglessmer — Fri, 05 Jun 2020 12:05:08 +0000

A very common misconception when looking at atmosphere & ocean dynamics in a rotating tank is that the center of the tank represents one of the poles and the edge of the tank the equator. And there is one experiment that — I fear — might reinforce that misconception, and that is the one we […]

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Oceanographic concepts and language, reloaded

mglessmer — Wed, 12 Nov 2014 12:30:05 +0000

How we might misunderstand our students and therefore diagnose misconceptions where there are none. Imagine you are in an Earth Sciences class and your teacher talks about glaciers and how they are “retreating”. They probably also show you pictures comparing a very old photograph from, say, 1900, with a current photo of the same glacier. What you […]

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