The typology of learning impediments is intended as a diagnostic tool for thinking about where science learning 'goes wrong'. It is a model of the different types of 'learning bugs' that may occur when our teaching does link to students' thinking in the ways we intend.
One category of null learning impediment is a deficiency learning impediment. Null learning impediments occur when the intended learning may not take place because student is unable to make sense of the teaching in terms existing ideas. This may be because the student has never acquired necessary pre-requisite knowledge, i.e. a deficiency learning impediment
Situations where learning could be impeded by learners not having available pre-requisite knowledge
A compound is just a lot of different elements put together
A visual teaching model of ionisation in the mass spectrometer
Stars look so little because they are a long way away, but some stars are closer than the planets
Bill's References To What Particles Try To Do Not having a language for describing quanticle behaviour: If particles don’t ‘try’, then what do they do?
Gas particles try to spread out and move apart
What are the bits of electricity, if the the speed of the electrons is actually really slow?
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Dr Keith S Taber kst24@cam.ac.uk
University of Cambridge Faculty of Education
© Keith S Taber