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[Phys-L] 60 Modeling Workshops this summer. Forward to science teachers in your town




[Teachers say that they appreciate reminders -- they get too busy! Thus, will you please forward this note to high school science teachers in your town? -- Jane Jackson, AMTA volunteer & Co-Director of ASU Modeling Instruction Program]

April 5, 2016
ATTENTION SCIENCE TEACHERS! Take a Modeling Workshop this summer.

Modelers are better prepared to transition to NGSS than other teachers, research shows.^

60 Modeling Workshops in high school chemistry, physics, and biology, and middle school science will be offered this summer, in many states. Most are two or three weeks long.

* CEUs; optional graduate credit, stipends at grant-funded sites.
* Modeling Instruction is research-informed.
* Ask your school administration to help pay. Mention the research on NGSS readiness.

Website: http://modelinginstruction.org/workshops-2016
Workshop descriptions: http://www.phystec.org/pd/?set=Modeling

ABOUT MODELING INSTRUCTION:
Modeling Instruction is designated as an Exemplary K-12 science program and a Promising Educational Technology program by the U.S. Department of Education.
Modeling Workshops are peer-led. Content is reorganized around basic 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, as they practice techniques of guided inquiry and cooperative learning.

Each MODELING WORKSHOP has these features:
* aligned with National Science Education Standards
* focuses on all 8 scientific practices of NRC Framework for K-12 Science Education.
* addresses multiple learning styles.
* addresses student naive 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, Cambridge curriculum, PBL, etc.
* 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 tools for engineering design and problem solving. Thus, modeling guides all other practices.

TEACHERS SAY:
* I'm a better teacher after modeling, I like my job more, I feel the kids walk away with real transferable skills.
* It moves students in the direction of being independent learners, and it puts the responsibility for learning where it belongs - on the students.
* The Modeling program is the only one I have found that is truly grounded in how students learn and attacks head-on the misconceptions students have.

Experiment ------> Consensus ------> Representation
Experimentation ------> Modeling -------> Understanding

Questions: contact Wendy Heheman, AMTA Outreach Coordinator:
wendy@modelinginstruction.org
http://modelinginstruction.org

^ Reference: Haag, S. & Megowan, C. (2015) Next Generation Science Standards: A National Mixed-Methods Study on Teacher Readiness, School Science and Mathematics Volume 115, number 8.