I
thought it was really interesting to read the perspective of teachers actually
implementing modeling in their classrooms currently. In the Braunschweig piece, I especially enjoyed reading the
student’s responses to modeling curriculum. It was exciting to see the theoretical benefits we’ve been
discussing in class (comprehension, confidence, identification as someone who
can, etc.) represented in their perspectives, which covered both cognitive and
socio-emotional gains in a pretty impressive show of metacognition.
Braunschweig’s emphasis on positive communication encompasses a lot of what
we’ve learned about in psychology and classroom ecology as key to a strong
learning community, and it was great to see an actual example of how to achieve
this. I will definitely be
incorporating his ‘questions-only’ peer feedback strategy for whiteboard
discussions in my future class! As a music lover, I also identified with his
closing jazz metaphor, which I think astutely highlights the beauty that can be
created through collaboration and flexibility.
While
Finkbeiner’s writing style was slightly less engaging, I thought it was really
valuable to see the tangible results of modeling – especially from someone who
seems a skeptic. His points
contribute to our ongoing discussion of depth versus breadth, confirming that
students understand as much and more through modeling even when fewer concepts
are covered. In Schober’s piece, I
liked his articulation of all the different pedagogical techniques encompassed
by modeling, including “engagement tools such as Socratic dialogue,
individualized instruction, multiple representations of phenomena, kinesthetic
experiences, cooperative learning and emphasis on coherency of concepts,” which
we have been learning about all year in many different classes. With so many excellent strategies
readily incorporated, its no wonder that modeling is so successful!
Questions:
- All the papers we read this week were from the perspective
of physics teachers, how do you think teaching modeling will differ for other
scientific disciplines?
- How can we help students, like the one who reported the
drawback: “It puts a lot of responsibility on the experimenter to think,"
see the value in more challenging approaches, especially when they may have
never been asked to think in this way before?
I also liked the 'questions-only' procedure suggested by Braunschwieg. While keeping with the discussion and collaborative structure and practice of modeling, it is also a good suggestion for building a good classroom culture and environment. I do believe that the author is right, in that the students also have to be comfortable with the modeling method. To answer the second question you put forward, hopefully, the NGS will start teaching students at a younger age to take on more of that responsibility and learn the practice of modeling. For students in that situation now, those skills and meaning could be taught in steps throughout the year. We could build up those collaboration and thought process skills by slowly adding them into lessons.
ReplyDeleteI think we can help students like these see the value in more challenging approaches by explaining to them how valuable this process of thinking is in the real world. We could explain that facts can be googled and usually they are pretty accurate, but one of the purposes of education is to explore how we can think and address new unfamiliar problems to find solutions or possible explanations. One way to grow is through failure and overcoming challenges, having the answers given to you doesn’t help you grow as much as if you find them on your own or with the assistance of peers and some scaffolding. This type of dialogue can fit nicely into a whole class discussion at the beginning of the year and reinforced throughout the semester.
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