Students arrive in every new class indeed, every new lesson with their own notions of "how things work." Theorists and researchers refer to these notions by many terms alternative frameworks, naive conceptions, alternative conceptions. We will call them misconceptions, and of all the things we can never be sure of in today's classroom, we can rely on the presence of student misconceptions in abundance. Sometimes misconceptions are formed from a student's past experiences, sometimes from incorrect past teaching; often the cause can't be identified. Theory tells us—and it is borne out in the evidence from the studies ...