didaskalogenic

cryptofascistbbq commented on the word didaskalogenic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didaskalogenic

"Given their inherently abstract nature, many scientific concepts, such as Newton's Laws of Motion, directly conflict a "working" and immediate understanding of the world. Where this is the case, such conceptual conflicts can give rise to serious obstacles to students' acceptance and understanding of scientific ideas. In contrast, a wide range of other scientific ideas, assumptions, and concepts are not obviously related to practical experience. Students misconceptions about these more abstract scientific ideas, for example, the atomic theory, the wave-particle nature of light, the cell theory of biological organization, and the theory of evolution are often grounded in past instruction. In analogy to physician-induced (iatrogenic) disease (iatrogenesis), didaskologenic (or didaktikogenic) (from the Greek dáskalos for "teacher")1 ideas (and misconceptions) arise from and are reinforced during the course of instruction. Particularly in the more abstract sciences, where many ideas are inherently counter-intuitive, didaskologenic scientific misconceptions often arise through the use of inappropriate analogies in the course of instruction.234

As examples, there are the ideas that the breaking of a bond can release energy (when all bonds require energy to break), the depiction of molecular processes using non-random molecular motions, the depiction of electron orbitals, and the molecular level effects of mutations on organismic phenotypes. A number of such errors are found in textbooks56 and various instructional animations."

June 22, 2013