6 February 2017 Never let the data get in the way of a good argument.

Teaching is all about getting students to change their minds and making connections. The "best" way this happens is students first reflect on what it is they know or think they know about a given topic. Then the student is faced with something they have not seen or been faced with before and ideally it causes conflict in that it contradicts what they know or think they know. At some point students have a chance to try various ways of explaining the contradiction and sooner or later they change their mind. The new explanation does not match what they previously thought they knew, and it is in that blink of an eye or maybe many blinks of both eyes that learning has taken place.

The reality of it all is that this is a very messy process and often times results in the student returning to their previous explanation prior to the conflict. However if the student is presented with enough scenarios that elicit the same conflict or related conflicts repeatedly then at some point the data will speak and the conflict will be resolved. Minds will have been changed and learning will have taken place.