Modeling
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
• Q4 Assessments: May be longer (summative)
and include questions from Q1-3. Feedback
welcome.
• Continue to check email for announcements
on PD, summer sessions. CT Science Center
free (not paid) workshop on Science Inquiry,
last week of July?, Peabody 8th grade geology
workshop, 5th grade astronomy, etc
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• Q4 pacing:
• Phychem: elect/energy, end with
forum
• Bio: open, but structure/function, end
with some project?
• Chem: reactions, applications, gas,
organic
• Physics: energy: light/sound
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• Need help with data for TVAL?
• AP Training: available for lots of
teachers
• DEP Commiss, wants to “teach in”,
PhyChem, Cross, May 9 or May 16 9am
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• Next year: no openings likely until June, but
possible 3 ms gen science, 1 hs biology (eng),
1 hs chemistry/phy chem (HSC), magnet
resource BioMed (Hyde)..
• Talk to me if you have a reason for
requesting a transfer. remember, best
interests of the school system.
• MATERIALS/SUPPLIES:
Make sure
to make a list, use Frey, Fisher, etc and give
to admins before the end of the year!
• May 10 drop off, May 11 Science Fair 9-12 (I
do buses), Awards May 12
• SRC forms for projects? Bacteria/humans
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Why Science
• Follow up discussion: last time
• Reviewed goals of science education,
jobs, how it aligns to courses and
offerings in the district/your school.
• What skills, concepts we choose to
emphasize in the science courses
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Where to go from here
• Survey of anonymous views…
• Feedback to principals, guidance,
etc.. On course selection and
requirements.
• Changes in course offerings?
• Changes in focus of course content,
skills, grading?
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TODAY’S DISCUSSION
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How do students learn from
models, diagrams, maps?
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What are some of the issues that
research tells us about science learning
and models?
•
What are some of the ways we
explicitly teach students modeling and
how to learn from models?
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Modeling
• construction and test of
representations that serve as
analogues to systems in the real
world
• representations can be of many
forms
• useful in summarizing known
features and predicting outcomes
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Modeling concepts
• models as representations of causal
or explanatory ideas,
• there can be multiple models of the
same thing,
• models do not need to be exactly
like the thing modeled,
• models can be revised or changed in
light of new data
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Modeling
Modeling:
recognize data patterns
create models to account for phenomena
identify components of model
design experiments to test models
assess models for data fit and consistency
revise models based on additional data (model
extension) / effect to cause reasoning
use model to make prediction
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Student Issues with
models
• models are not copies; they are
deliberate simplifications
• Error is a component of all models
• development of specific
representational forms and notations
• role of geometry and visualization
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Children Model views
• Level 1: models merely copies of the world
• Level 2 : models involve both the selection
and omission of features, but emphasis
remains on the models themselves rather
than on the scientists ideas behind the
model.
• Level 3: models were regarded as tools
developed for the purpose of testing
theories
• A learning progression for understanding
models as generative tools for predicting
and explaining
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• 4
Students construct and use models spontaneously in a
range of domains to help their own thinking. Students
consider how the world could behave according to various
models. Students construct and use models to generate
new questions about the behavior or existence of
phenomena.
• 3
Students construct and use multiple models to explain
and predict more aspects of a group of related
• phenomena. Students view models as tools that can
support their thinking about existing and new phenomena.
Students consider alternatives in constructing models based
on analyses of the different advantages and weakness for
explaining and predicting these alternative models possess.
• 2
Students construct and use a model to illustrate and
explain how a phenomenon occurs, consistent with the
evidence about the phenomenon. Students view models as
a means of communicating their understanding of a
phenomenon rather than a tool to support their own
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thinking.
Data Modeling
• what professionals do
• data are constructed to answer
questions
• Data are inherently a form of
abstraction
• data are represented in various
ways
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Scale Models, Diagrams,
and Maps
• make it possible for students to visualize objects or
processes
• depends on the complexity of the
relationships
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Diagrams
• comprehensibility of diagrams
• three reasons why diagrams
miscommunicate:
• some do not include explanatory
information (illustrative or not
explanatory),
• lack a causal chain,
• fail to map the explanation to a familiar
context.
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Maps
• preserve some analog qualities of
the space
• omit or alter features of the
landscape
• easier to represent objects than to
represent large-scale space
• struggle with orientation, perspective
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Designing Models
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Task: designing a model that works like a human elbow (Penner et al., 1997).
three consecutive 1-hour sessions.
Discussed different types of models they had previously seen or made.
Considered the characteristics of those models, and how models are used for
understanding phenomena.
Introduced to the task of de-signing a model that functions like their elbow.
Discussed how their own elbows work,
Worked in pairs or triads to design and build models that illustrated the functional
aspects of the human elbow.
Generated an initial model, then each group demonstrated and explained their
model to the class followed by discussion of the various models.
Modified their models or started over.
In interviews conducted after the session, students improved in their ability to
judge the functional rather than perceptual qualities of models com pared with
non-modeling peers. Also demonstrated an understanding of the process of
modeling in general that was similar to that of children 3 to 4 years older.
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Teacher’s Role
Provides historical examples of very important people
changing their views and explanations over time
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Begins to use students’ external
representations of their thinking as a way of
evaluating their ideas/ beliefs (in terms of
intelligibility, plausibility, and fruitfulness) in order
to (a) create, when necessary, dissatisfaction in the
minds of the learner to facilitate conceptual
exchange or (b) look for ways of promoting
conceptual capture in the mind of the learner
• SOURCE: Smith et al. (2000).
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Students’ Role
• Begin to consider the implications and limitations of their
personal thinking
• Begin to look for ways of revising their personal thinking
• Begin to evaluate their own/others’ thinking in terms of
intelligibility, plausibility, and fruitfulness of ideas
• Continue to articulate criteria for acceptance of ideas
(i.e., consistency and generalizability)
• Continue to employ physical representations of their
thinking
• Begin to employ analogies and metaphors, discuss their
explicit use, and differentiate physical models from
conceptual models
• Articulate and defend ideas about what learning should
be like
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