The Effect of Classroom Practice on Students Understanding of Models (original) (raw)
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This study uses interview data involving a variety of modeling contexts to investigate eighth grade students' beliefs about the nature and purpose of scientific models. The participants have been exposed to modeling curricula for the past three years, allowing us to ask questions in a variety of familiar modeling contexts as well as in a novel context introduced during the interview. Results indicate that, overall, students' responses are more consistent when reasoning about familiar modeling contexts than novel contexts, although some students do give very consistent responses across all contexts. All students were able to talk about previous models they had worked with and articulate similarities across them. Students are most likely to talk about models as showing processes and explanations, and some also mentioned models as generalizing to new cases when this was a salient feature of the context.
Teaching about Scientific Models in a Science Content Course
Scientists construct and use models as part of scientific inquiry. Thus, learners should be knowledgeable about what scientific models are, how they are developed, and how they are used by scientists. This paper describes the instruction and effectiveness of teaching about the nature of scientific models in the context of an undergraduate science course for future elementary and middle school teachers. Multiple representations are used to teach biological phenomena while drawing explicit attention to the development and use of models in the scientific community and in science teaching. Results indicate participants initially considered models to be physical representations of objects to be visualized, the process scientists use to do an experiment, and a chart scientists use to record data. Posttests indicate increased recognition of models as representations of scientists' ideas and explanations of processes. Despite explicit instruction, few came to understand the role of mode...
Investigating the Relationship Between Views of Scientific Models and Modeling Practice
Research in Science Education, 2019
Understanding scientific models and practicing scientific modeling have been emphasized and advocated in science learning. Although teachers have been perceived as shaping their students' understanding of the nature of science, they have been recognized for their lack of understanding of scientific models. This study explores middle school science teachers' and ninth-grade students' performance in terms of their understanding of scientific models and their construction and evaluation of these models. The study participants comprised 95 science teachers and 608 ninth-grade students. To investigate the students' understanding of scientific models, they were asked to fill out a Students' Understanding of Models in Science survey. To explore the students' model construction and evaluation, they were asked to explain three different magnetic phenomena and to provide the criteria they used to evaluate the scientific models. The results show that the teachers' performance on these three aspects was significantly better than that of the students. However, this study indicated that teachers have similar problems as students in terms of understanding theoretical representations of scientific models and practicing model construction. Moreover, those teachers who had a better understanding that scientific models are not the replica of target events could develop higher levels of models while students with more understanding that scientific models are the replica of target events were able to develop higher levels of models. The findings of the study contribute to a better understanding of the gap between teachers and students, which will be crucial for designing a better modeling-based curriculum.
Modelling in Science Lessons: Are There Better Ways to Learn With Models?
School Science and Mathematics, 1998
Modelling is the essence of scientific thinking, andmodels are both the methods andproducts of science. However, secondary students usually view science models as toys or miniatures of real-life objects, and few students actually understand why scientists use multiple models to explain concepts. A conceptual typology of models is presented and explainedto help teachers select models appropriate to the cognitive ability of their students. An example explains how the systematic presentation of analogical models enhanced an llth-grade chemistry student's understanding of atoms and molecules. The article recommends that teachers encourage their students to use and explore multiple models in science lessons at all levels.
… Journal of Science …, 2011
This research addresses high school students' understandings of the nature of models, and their interaction with model-based software in three science domains, namely, Biology, Physics, and Chemistry. Data from 736 high school students' understandings of models were collected using the Students' Understanding of Models in Science (SUMS) survey as part of a large scale, longitudinal study in the context of technology-based curricular units in each of the three science domains. The results of ANOVA and regression analyses showed that there were differences in students' pre-test understandings of models across the three domains, and that higher post-test scores were associated with having engaged in a greater number of curricular activities, but only in the chemistry domain. The analyses also showed that the relationships between the pre-test understanding of models sub-scales scores and post-test content knowledge varied across domains. Some implications are discussed with regard to how students' understanding of the nature of models can be promoted.
Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications
It has been declared that practicing science is aptly described as making, using, testing, and revising models. Modeling has also emerged as an explicit practice in science education reform efforts. This is evidenced as modeling is highlighted as an instructional target in the recently released Conceptual Framework for the New K-12 Science Education Standards: it reads that students should develop more sophisticated models founded on prior knowledge and skills and refined as understanding develops. Reflecting the purpose of engaging students in modeling in science classrooms, Oh and Oh (2011) have suggested five modeling activities, the first three of which were based van Joolingen's (2004) earlier proposal: 1) exploratory modeling, 2) expressive modeling, 3) experimental modeling, 4) evaluative modeling, and 5) cyclic modeling. This chapter explores how these modeling activities are embedded in high school physics classrooms and how each is juxtaposed as concurrent instructional objectives and scaffolds a progressive learning sequence. Through the close examination of modeling in situ within the science classrooms, the authors expect to better explicate and illuminate the practices outlined and support reform in science education.
PRESERVICE ELEMENTARY TEACHERS' UNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT SCIENTIFIC MODELS AND MODELLING
ICERI2017 Proceedings, 2017
Abstract: Scientific models are important thinking tools, which are used to generate explanations and predications. Despite the relevance of scientific models and modelling in science education, several studies reveal that students and teachers do not possess adequate views regarding these topics. This study investigated preservice elementary teachers' views about scientific models and modelling. Research questions included: (1) what do preservice elementary teachers understand about models and modelling in science?; (2) is there a relationship between preservice teachers' views about scientific models and modelling and their scientific background in high school or year of course attendance? A questionnaire adopted form the literature was applied to a sample of preservice elementary teachers of one Portuguese institution of higher education at 1st, 2nd and 3th years of the course. This questionnaire comprised five aspects of students' understanding of models and modelling: nature of models, multiple models, purpose of models, testing models, and changing models. Descriptive analysis showed that a high percentage of preservice elementary teachers hold naive or uninformed understandings of models and modelling. From this we can infer that this lack of understanding would hamper their pedagogical practice related to scientific issues in a fundamental way as well their teaching and learning in their initial formation. Moreover, students' understanding of models and modelling didn't became more elaborated with increasing university years and no difference was found taking in account the area chosen in high school.
International Journal of Science Education, 2013
This paper focuses on students' ability to transfer modelling performances across content areas, taking into consideration their improvement of content knowledge as a result of a model-based instruction. Seventy-four 6 th grade students of one science teacher in an urban public school in the Midwestern United States engaged in scientific modelling practices that were incorporated into a curriculum about the nature of matter. Concept-process models were embedded in the curriculum, as well as meta-modelling knowledge and modelling practices.
Examining Learning Through Modeling in K-6 Science Education
Journal of Science Education and Technology, 2014
Despite the abundance of research in Modeling-based Learning (MbL) in science education, to date there is only limited research on MbL practices among K-6 novice modelers. More specifically, there is no information on how young/novice modelers' modeling enactments look so that researchers and educators have an idea of what should be expected from these novice/young modelers while engaged in MbL. Our purpose in this study was to investigate the ways in which K-6 novice modelers can engage in MbL in science, in rich modeling contexts, which feature various modeling media and tools. Using data from a variety of contexts, modeling means and tools and different student ages, we seek to develop, from the ground up, detailed descriptions of the modeling practices that K-6 students follow when involved in MbL. While using the modeling phases (e.g., construction of a model, evaluation of a model), along with their associated practices, as described in the literature for older learners and expert modelers as our basis, we followed ground research approaches to develop the descriptions of student-centered MbL. Our findings revealed that novice modelers enact certain MbL phases in a different manner than those described in the literature for older learners and/or expert modelers. We found that not only do the content and context of the various modeling phases differ, but also the sequence of these modeling phases and their associated practices, are different from those already described in the literature. Finally, we discuss how rich descriptions of MbL discourse can ultimately inform teachers and researchers about ways in which learning in science through MbL can be supported.