Repairing Student Misconceptions in Heat Transfer Using Inquiry-based Activities

52 Anyone who’s taught for more than a week knows that students don’t learn everything that we teach. While we accept that students will either fail to absorb or subsequently forget many details, we hope that our students learn the “big ideas” or concepts from each course. Unfortunately, extensive research suggests that many science[1-6] and engineering[7-11] classes do little to foster deep conceptual understanding. Traditional instruction is particularly ineffective for promoting significant conceptual change.