Abstract
In response to recent educational imperatives in the United States, modeling and systems thinking have been identified as being critical for science learning. In this paper, we investigate models in the classroom from two important perspectives: (1) from the teacher perspective to understand how teachers perceive models and use models in the classroom and (2) from the student perspective to understand how student use model-based reasoning to represent their understanding in a classroom setting. Qualitative data collected from 19 teachers who attended a professional development workshop in the northeastern United States indicate that while teachers see the value in teaching to think with models (i.e., during inquiry practices), they tend to use models mostly as communication tools in the classroom. Quantitative data collected about the modeling practices of 42 middle school students who worked collaboratively in small groups (4-5 students) using a computer modeling program indicated that students tended to engage in more mechanistic and function-related thinking with time as they reasoned about a complex system. Further, students had a typified trajectory of first adding and then next paring down ideas in their models. Implications for science education are discussed.
Highlights
Recent large-scale science education reform in the United States has been mainly guided by the Generation Science Standards (NGSS, 2013)
We asked the teachers a series of questions regarding model use: (1) What do teachers report are beneficial about model use with regard to their students and in the scientific enterprise? (2) How do teachers develop models? and (3) How do teachers report their use of models in the classroom? To do so, open-ended questionnaires were distributed to 24 in-service teachers over three Teachers as Scholars (TAS) sessions; we only report on the number of teachers that took part in all three sessions (N = 19)
The teachers seem to agree that models are useful to promoting inquiry and furthering scientific discovery when used by scientists (Table 2)
Summary
Recent large-scale science education reform in the United States has been mainly guided by the Generation Science Standards (NGSS, 2013). In these standards, scientific practices such as modeling have been noted as being important in the science classroom. The NGSS highlights the value of integrating core concepts in science and engineering and engaging students in learning about ideas that cross-cut disciplines, such as system-level and function-level understanding. Many people inside and outside of the classroom do not have an appreciation for the purpose and the nature of models and modeling in science (e.g., Treagust et al, 2002; Crawford and Cullin, 2004)
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