[Colleagues: 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]
March 3, 2017
ATTENTION SCIENCE TEACHERS! Take a Modeling Workshop this summer.
60 summer Modeling Workshops in high school physics, chemistry,
physical science, biology, and middle school science will be offered,
in many states. Most are two or three weeks long.
* CEUs; optional graduate credit. Stipends at grant-funded sites.
* Modeling Instruction is research-informed, interactive engagement pedagogy.
* Ask your school administration to help pay. Mention this research
on NGSS readiness: Modelers are better prepared to transition to NGSS
than other teachers, research shows.^
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.
^ Reference: Haag, S. & Megowan, C. (2015) Next Generation Science
Standards: A National Mixed-Methods Study on Teacher Readiness,
School Science and Mathematics Vol 115, number 8.