[Physics ed colleagues: Will you please forward this to local high
school science teachers? and to your local science coordinator? --
Jane Jackson, ASU Modeling Instruction]
50 SUMMER MODELING WORKSHOPS NATIONWIDE
50 Modeling Workshops in high school physics, chemistry,
biology, and junior high physical science will be offered this summer
in many states. Most workshops are two or three weeks long.
Modeling Instruction is designated as an Exemplary K-12 science
program by the U.S. Department of Education.
Modeling Workshops thoroughly address most aspects of high school
science teaching, including integration of teaching methods with
course content. Workshops incorporate up-to-date results of physics
and science education research, best high school curriculum
materials, use of technology, and experience in collaborative
learning and guidance.
Participants are introduced to the Modeling Method as a systematic
approach to design of curriculum and instruction. The name Modeling
Instruction expresses an emphasis on making and using conceptual
models of physical, chemical, and biological phenomena as central to
learning and doing science. Mathematics instruction is integrated
seamlessly throughout each course by an emphasis on mathematical
modeling.
In each workshop, content for an entire semester course is
reorganized around models to increase its structural coherence.
Participants are supplied with a complete set of course materials and
work through activities alternately in roles of student or teacher.
Teachers use computers as scientific tools to collect, organize,
analyze, visualize, and model real data.
MODELING WORKSHOPS have these features:
* aligned with Common Core Math Standards and ELA.
* include all 8 scientific practices of NRC Framework for K-12
Science Education.
* address multiple learning styles.
* address naive student conceptions.
* collaboration, creativity, communication, and critical thinking.
* systems, models, modeling.
* coherent curriculum framework, but not a curriculum; thus flexible.
* compatible with Socratic methods & project-based instruction.
* science & math literacy.
* authentic assessments.
* high-tech and low-tech options for labs.
Models and theories are the purpose and the outcomes of scientific
practices. They are the tools for engineering design and problem
solving. As such, modeling guides all other practices.
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TEACHERS SAY:
* In thirty years of teaching, nothing has impacted my teaching like
the ideas I've learned in modeling. It is the best idea to enter the
teaching methods I have ever seen. (Jane Nelson, retired national
leader in physics teaching)
* Most useful course I have taken since becoming a teacher.
* Thanks to taking physics modeling course work, I am highly
qualified in physics.
* In the one year that I have been modeling, I have seen wonderful results.
* Modeling has changed the fundamental way I teach. I believe
eventually, maybe even in our lifetimes, all science will be taught
this way.
* We have had 3 physics teachers and 5 chemistry teachers enhance
their professional development at your ASU modeling workshops.
Modeling has made a world of difference in our science courses.