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  • Support for early career teachers
  • Teach First
  • Year 2: First half term: revisit how to use meaningful and memorable explanations
    • Spring week 2

    Induction tutor materials

    Training session - anticipating and addressing common misconceptions

    Duration: 90 minutes.

    Session objectives

    By the end of the session early career teachers (ECTs) will have:

    • identified common misconceptions in their subject
    • identified strategies for anticipating and addressing misconceptions
    • identified 2 strategies they’ll implement to anticipate and address misconceptions
    • reflected on their own practice and areas for development

    Session structure

    Introduction and settling task (10 minutes)

    Settling task: Ask ECTs to identify the techniques and strategies they use to identify misconceptions.

    Facilitator to explain the purpose of the training session, session outcomes and the related ECF statements.

    Why it’s important to anticipate and address misconceptions (10 minutes)

    1. Explain the importance of anticipating misconceptions, checking understanding, and providing feedback when anticipating and addressing misconceptions.
    2. Explain that pupils will have different misconceptions due to their own experiences, so it's important that teachers learn how to address these.
    3. Explore the challenges of addressing misconceptions once they become embedded.
    4. Activity: Ask ECTs to reflect on the strategies they use to anticipate misconceptions and consider the impact they have on planning and teaching.

    Developing strategies to anticipate and address misconceptions (50 minutes)

    1. Explain why misconceptions need to be identified and addressed to help pupils adjust their mental models and incorporate the correct information.
    2. Explore how 2 of the following strategies can be used to help prevent pupils from developing misconceptions or address misconceptions:
      • examples and non-examples
      • analogies
      • concept cartoons
      • models
    3. Provide a quick recap on the strategies from Year 1.
    4. Exemplify each strategy through a subject-specific example, such as through a concept in which misconceptions often occur.

    Activity: Ask ECTs to identify a subject-specific concept they teach in which misconceptions often occur or are embedded. Discuss and plan how they would use the strategies to prevent or address a misconnection from developing.

    Next steps and close (10 minutes)

    Ask ECTs to reflect on the learning from the session and record their actions and next steps related to their classroom practice. Options include re-visiting certain areas of the course, talking with their mentor, watching another teacher, planning to adapt their practice, and more.

    How pupils learn

    • 2d. Identifying possible misconceptions and planning how to prevent these forming.
    • 2g. Encouraging pupils to share emerging understanding and points of confusion so that misconceptions can be addressed.

    Subject and curriculum

    • 3.4 Anticipating common misconceptions within particular subjects is also an important aspect of curricular knowledge; working closely with colleagues to develop an understanding of likely misconceptions is valuable.

    Assessment

    • 6e. Structuring tasks and questions to enable the identification of knowledge gaps and misconceptions (for example, by using common misconceptions within multiple-choice questions).