Discrepant Events
Counter-Intuitive Phenomena
Counter-Intuitive Phenomena
A discrepant event is a surprising or unexpected demonstration that challenges students’ existing ideas or assumptions about how the world works. In science education, these events are powerful tools because they create cognitive dissonance, sparking curiosity and motivating learners to seek explanations. For example, showing that warm water can freeze faster than cold water (the Mpemba effect) or that a balloon won’t pop when pressed against a bed of nails can leave students puzzled and eager to understand why. By engaging with discrepant events, students are encouraged to question their preconceptions, explore scientific principles more deeply, and develop critical thinking skills as they test hypotheses and reconcile observations with scientific explanations. This process makes learning more memorable, engaging, and meaningful.
Make a video of a YOU performing a discrepant event. (Do not use someone else's video).
VIDEO - Discrepant Events [6:12]
Embed your video of the discrepant event in your slideshow
Diagrams & Explanation - Provide diagrams and a scientific explanation of the scientific principles involved.
VIDEO -Creating a slideshow as a basis for a video [4:41]
VIDEO -Animating Diagrams in Google Slides [5:08]
VIDEO -Animating Diagrams-2 (cardiac circulation) [2:03]
VIDEO -Mystery Container - Siphons - Making a movie from Google Slides [14:53]
Applications - Describe real-life applications of the scientific principles involved.
Create an explanatory video from your slide show, providing annotations to draw students attention to key events. Use your video in class to engage the class as learners with your discrepant event.
VIDEO: Animating diagrams in Google Slides to make explanations [5:08] - File -practice
VIDEO: Using the Zoom Annotation tool when making explanatory movies [5:35]
VIDEO: Screen recorders
Quicktime [1:45]
ScreenCastify [5:55]
Zoom [5:35]
Describe how this activity was employed and its effectiveness.
Watch all of the explanatory videos of your colleagues. Link to five or more that you can use, and explain the context when you will use them.
Discrepant Teaching Events: Using an Inquiry Stance to Address Students’ Misconceptions (J. Longfield, International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education 2009, Volume 21, Number 2, 266-271)
Chapter-5, Developing Scientific Reading: Discrepant Events. Herr, N. (2008). The Sourcebook for Teaching Science – Strategies, Activities, and Instructional Resources. San Francisco. John Wiley. 584 pages.
Discrepant events—demonstrations that produce unexpected outcomes—are used in science to capture students’ attention and to confront their beliefs about a “phenomenon by producing an outcome which is contrary to what their previous experiences would lead them to believe is true” (Misiti, 2000, p. 34). Science teachers have long known that the use of this teaching strategy, which Sokoloff and Thornton (1997) call an interactive lecture demonstration, can be a powerful means of uncovering students’ preconceptions about science phenomena at the same time that it activates the thinking and learning process
EXAMPLE: Black-Box Science
EXAMPLE: Variety of Discrepant Events
Many of the following demonstrations are discrepant events.
Sick Science - Spangler Science
Easy Science Experiments - We are Teachers
Science Demonstrations - James Lincoln
Home Science - various
Chemistry Demonstrations - Andrew Szydlo
Discrepant Events - WST