Survival of the most cliche'
At work last week, I gave a bunch of exams. Historical Geology took their midterm, and both classes (Historical + Physical) took their lab practical exams. One of the essay questions on the Historical Geology midterm was about evolution. I specifically asked "what is the logic behind and evidence for Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection?" And while some of the responses I got where excellent (and some were lousy), a large number used the phrase "survival of the fittest," which I never use when explaining evolution. My reasoning for avoiding it is that is an oversimiplification, and not a full explanation. It's almost always more complicated than that.
Curious about whether it was explicitly used in the textbook, I skimmed through the chapter dealing with evolution, and found one instance where it said "... surival of the more fit." But that's not what the students were saying, and tellingly, the ones who used it were not using the phrase as part of a larger, lucid explanation of natural selection's workings. It was more of a placeholder for an actual explanation.
I think where they're getting it is pre-existing ideas about evolution, unrelated to the content I provide in this course of study. It's a phrase, a simplistic platitude, that's already in their heads when they sign up for my course, and I'm failing them by failing to discover it and then debunk it when we cover that topic.
I followed up a bit on that and did a count. 12 students did not use the phrase "survival of the fittest" in their essays, with an average score of 3.29 out of 5 possible points. Eight students did use the phrase in their essays, with an average score of 2.75 out of 5 possible. This is interesting to me: those students that used the cliche' "survival of the fittest" did WORSE than the students who didn't use it. There were four tests that scored a perfect 5/5, and none of them used "survival of the fittest." Of the four students who scored 4/5 (the next highest score), three didn't use the phrase, and one did. Interesting, eh?
I think this is exactly what the PBS program A Private Universe and ensuing series Minds of Our Own were getting at. (I blogged about them here.) It's all about identifying students' misconceptions, and then working to disassemble those misconceptions, and show students how the misconceptions are wrong or incomplete, and THEN building up new knowledge. This "survival of the fittest" business has convinced me it's very important to probe for students' pre-existing ideas before I teach a lesson.
Thoughts?
Curious about whether it was explicitly used in the textbook, I skimmed through the chapter dealing with evolution, and found one instance where it said "... surival of the more fit." But that's not what the students were saying, and tellingly, the ones who used it were not using the phrase as part of a larger, lucid explanation of natural selection's workings. It was more of a placeholder for an actual explanation.
I think where they're getting it is pre-existing ideas about evolution, unrelated to the content I provide in this course of study. It's a phrase, a simplistic platitude, that's already in their heads when they sign up for my course, and I'm failing them by failing to discover it and then debunk it when we cover that topic.
I followed up a bit on that and did a count. 12 students did not use the phrase "survival of the fittest" in their essays, with an average score of 3.29 out of 5 possible points. Eight students did use the phrase in their essays, with an average score of 2.75 out of 5 possible. This is interesting to me: those students that used the cliche' "survival of the fittest" did WORSE than the students who didn't use it. There were four tests that scored a perfect 5/5, and none of them used "survival of the fittest." Of the four students who scored 4/5 (the next highest score), three didn't use the phrase, and one did. Interesting, eh?
I think this is exactly what the PBS program A Private Universe and ensuing series Minds of Our Own were getting at. (I blogged about them here.) It's all about identifying students' misconceptions, and then working to disassemble those misconceptions, and show students how the misconceptions are wrong or incomplete, and THEN building up new knowledge. This "survival of the fittest" business has convinced me it's very important to probe for students' pre-existing ideas before I teach a lesson.
Thoughts?
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