2. Do your Student Learn or Mug up ? Students of all ages seem to have a mind of their own when it comes to responding to any situation or performing any task. As teachers, most of us go back home thinking that our students have understood every concept that we teach them. It is only when we test them that we find that some concepts have not been understood as clearly as they should have been. It is this desire to understand student thinking that prompted us to examine ASSET questions of the past rounds, in Science, examining the most common wrong answers to understand what could have made students select the options they did.
5. Why was the Question asked? This question was asked to test whether students are able to select the appropriate and safe method to quickly identify the material. 2. What did students answer? Around 32% chose the correct option C, whereas 52% chose the most common wrong answer, option D. Possible reason for choosing A: Very few students have chosen this option and are probably making a random guess. Possible reason for choosing B: Very few students have chosen this option and are probably making a random guess. Possible reason for choosing D: Students choosing this option may only have observed limited interactions of common materials or have ignored the phrase 'has to be'. They might also have been swayed by this option as it is the only one that sounds 'scientific'
6. 4. How do we handle this? Ask students to answer the question above again. Find out students' reasons for their choices. Bring 3 'white' powders to class – salt, powdered/castor sugar and rice powder. Tell them that all three are from the kitchen, but only one of them is salt. Ask students to guess what the powders could be. Ask students about ways in which they can try and identify the powders. Remind them that unless they are absolutely sure that a substance is edible, they should not taste it as it could be dangerous. Now, ask them to put one spoon of each of the powders in different glasses of water and see if they dissolve. Let the glasses rest for a while and then observe the water. They will be able to see that rice powder creates a suspension, but the salt and sugar dissolve in water. Now ask the students to confirm whether option D is the correct approach or idea in this question. Students should be encouraged to develop a logical approach to problems, based on assimilated information. Let students realize that although the answer to this question has a rather 'un scientific' sounding answer, the approach used to arrive at it is a scientific one
