4/6 David Bergsmith Modeling Approach to Teaching

       A model approach to teaching uses ideas from students, drawing upon previous knowledge and asks students to make observations, plan and test hypotheses and make revisions. Braunschweig talks about using this approach in his experience with a model based approach to teaching. In his teaching, Braunschweig’s students make a list about factors that effect the swinging of a pendulum. Students use what they already know to first make a list of all possible factors. The class revises the list and is asked to explain and argue which ideas make for good choices to consider. This form of reasoning builds scientific knowledge and may also allow addressing misconceptions.

       These accounts of a modeling approach to teaching all ask students to explain and argue their thinking throughout the class. Schober says that discourse in the class between students and teachers and between students is the most important factor in determining the success of this approach to teaching. “The questioning strives to reinforce key ideas and definitions; confront misconceptions; and provide students with opportunities to elucidate the model, extend the model to new situations, applications and contexts, and establish connections among the verbal, diagrammatical, graphical, and mathematical representations of phenomena.” Schober says in his account of model-based instruction. These conversations in the classroom build knowledge among the students and this description of what the conversations should include is most helpful of all the accounts.

       Modeling instruction may cause a decrease in the breadth of topics covered in class. With this obstacle in place, instructors should also focus on developing scientific investigation and academic skills such as literacy and numeracy. Teachers can place focus in class upon asking reasoning questions such as asking for explanation and allowing argumentation and looking for evidence that was used when forming conclusions. Effective and clear explanation and argumentation skills will allow students to be inquisitive about questions they may face on standardized tests and in the real world. While modeling instruction does not always allow students to explore all topics during the course, the focus of developing an inquiry classroom and students as investigators may outweigh the shortage of breadth of content in the classroom.

       Modeling, both computational and physical/representational will serve as a means of reference and comparison in my classroom. Students will be able to use models as shared experiences to construct knowledge and in application of concepts and relationships. Models and the phenomena explored in models may be used as evidence when describing concepts and the construction of theories. Computational modeling may be used more than physical/representational models due to the possible manipulation and exploration of relationships. However, as a teacher I will have to make decisions about my class and what types of models will best help construct knowledge for my students. My students should also have opportunities to use all types of models and then explain, argue and revise their thinking through the exploration of use of models.

       Are there models that show how hand soap cleans your hands? Possibly showing the differences in antibacterial soap and non-antibacterial soap? This could be an effective model to explore the replication of prokaryotic cells. If there aren’t models that represent this, what ideas do you have about it?