Geisler- What We Call Misconceptions May Be Necessary Stepping-Stones Toward Making Sense of the World

• What are three things you learned from reading this article?  
o If students have the guidance and space to reason aloud with one another, they can fill the classroom with ideas about how to solve problems and why the ideas make sense in the context being examined.
o Discussions and reasoning are nonlinear and messy and do not always move from less to more sophisticated. Instead of always being able to predict how students will work toward explaining phenomena, as teachers, we can consider how well they are collaboratively attending to their idiosyncratic ways of thinking.
o Suggest using activities that engage students in science and engineering practices that will help them develop their understanding of disciplinary core ideas and crosscutting concepts and, subsequently, the world around them.
• Why is it important to pre-assessing students’ knowledge prior to teaching a lesson or unit?
o Instruction must begin with close attention to students’ ideas, knowledge, skills, and attitudes, which provide the foundation on which new learning builds.
• What “wacky” ideas (if any) have you heard your students come up with?  
o We work on weather in Elementary school, and the amount of kids who think that rain comes from someone crying in the sky is wacky.
• Where do you think those ideas originated?
o I think that as kids, parents tell their kids this misconception, because it is an easy and quick explanation. Parents think that it is cute for kids to repeat it to people.  
• What will you do differently in your classroom based on these findings?
o I will open with a question that guides inquiry and questioning of the world around my students. Students will be engaged in activities that develop their understanding of the world around them.

When you have the appropriate person by your side, you won't need that other 80 percent of the time. This place,  run 3 is where I was able to find the joy I was looking for. They were able to tell me the answer, which has made it possible for me to have delight each day, despite the long and difficult hours I spend at work.