Discrepant Teaching Events: Addressing Students' Misconceptions

Presented at SoTL Commons Conference

A discrepant teaching event has an unexpected outcome which vividly portraying what is often an abstract construct or concept, thereby uncovering students' misconceptions and tacit beliefs. Once students' ideas are exposed, instructors are better able to plan for and “confront” these misconceptions, thereby increasing students' learning. This roundtable will begin with two instructors, one a science teacher educator and the other a sociologist, briefly demonstrating how they utilized discrepant teaching events (DTEs) in their classes and studied its impact on students' learning. During the ensuing discussion, participants will be asked to generate ideas for using DTEs in their classes, and to consider how they could design SoTL projects to study its effectiveness.