Please pass the disconnect

Chatted with Sue Richman this PM. Sue is a HS Biology teacher in South Portland who was one of our AIM teachers. I joined her students last fall as they learned about invasive species via evolution. Interesting approach. A conversation for another day.

What I want to tell you has to do with peer review. Sue spends Septembers teaching CP & AP students the nitty gritty about how science works (with a healthy dose of peer review, supporting evidence, the publication process...). She contends that it is a completely foreign process to her HS students. They need a lot of explanation and discussion and reinforcement, and often they still don't reeeally grasp it.

Upon getting wind of this, Sarah K notes that it's interesting that so many of the middle school teachers talk about the peer feedback and review happening in their classrooms, but HS students have so much trouble with it. hmm. Please pass the disconnect.

Think they can they do it, but just don't know what its called?
Can they do it, but don't know its relation to real science?
Or are they really not doing the real thing as middle schoolers?