Visual Modeling Strategies In Science Teaching

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The long-term goal of this project is to find principles of instruction for developing students' visual models in science, including design principles for curriculum development, technological tools, and new pedagogical principles. It will pursue specific aspects of this goal by conducting detailed studies of teaching and learning in the context of innovative curricula that focus on developing visual models. We lack studies that bring together insights on models and visualization from cognitive science and strategic planning for model based learning in real classroom interactions. The project will concentrate on methods teachers use to guide full class discussions while using innovative model-based curricula in middle school biology and in high school physical science. The three major parallel tracks of the research are: I: Documenting student imagistic reasoning processes in discussion. II: Identifying classroom teaching strategies that foster the learning of visual models. III: Identifying specific visual modeling strategies (e.g., the use of animations and simulations in small tutoring groups and in full classrooms)The project responds to the need to describe guided inquiry methods that lie between pure discovery and pure lecture approaches. Overall, the project will contribute to connecting three important areas of theory: the cognitive dynamics of imagistic mental simulation; the dynamics of teacher-student co-construction in full class discussions; and theories of model-based learning for conceptual change. These theoretical results will contribute to the practice of pedagogy by providing a more coherent framework within which teachers and other educators can make informed decisions about classroom strategies and pedagogical tools such as animations and simulations.