Learning Progressions for Modeling Processes

Supporting students’ understanding of the intellectual and material work of science 1. Organizing what we know and what we’d like to know. 2. Generating a model. 3. Seeking evidence. 4. Constructing an argument.

Sparks Remember occasions when you walked across a rug on a dry day and touched a doorknob. What happened? Using modeling processes and your current understanding of atomic theory to explain what happened.

Why Create Models? Phenomena that are: To long or short in time to experience and understand directly. Unobservable.Complex.

Supporting activities of inquiry and model building Conducting background library/internet research. Watching teacher-led demonstrations. Performing lab-practicals where one identifies natural materials or features (e.g., rocks, xylem versus phloem in plant stems, different gases). Engaging in exercises to “make something happen” (e.g., convection currents in an aquarium, an acid-base reaction). Designing/building machines or other technologies. Learning the use of equipment or lab procedures.

Modeling Processes: Level 2 Students: Realize that there is a specific, explicit purpose that mediates the way the model is constructed. Make conscious choices about how to achieve the purpose. Know that the model no longer must exactly correspond with the real-world object or phenomena being modeled. Know that real-world objects or actions can be changed or repackaged in some limited ways (e.g., through highlighting, simplifying, showing specific aspects, adding clarifying symbols, or creating different versions).

A level 3 understanding is characterized by three important factors. First, the model is now constructed in the service of developing and testing ideas rather than as serving as a copy of reality itself. Second, the modeler takes an active role in constructing the model, evaluating which of several designs could be used to serve the model’s purpose. Third, models can be manipulated and subjected to tests in the service of informing ideas. Thus, they provide information within a cyclic constructive process. Modeling Processes – Level 3

The LC and Level 3: Engage Phase Describe what you already know about this concept, situation, process or event. Or, do we need some initial exploration and data collection before we can begin to develop a model? What ways can you think of to represent this concept, situation, process or event? Is your model (from responses to 1, 2, and 3) descriptive or does it explain what is happening? As best you can, clarify what you think is a possible explanation for what you think will happen. You now have created a tentative model. What question(s) does your model help you ask? How can your question(s) be worded so that it can be answered by making observations, collecting data, and analyzing data?

The LC and Level 3: Engage Phase How can your question(s) be worded so that they can be answered by making observations, collecting data, and analyzing data? How can you define your variables in ways that will allow you to record consistent and accurate measurements? In regard to your question(s), what does your model predict? How can you test your model in a way that generates a better description of how this phenomenon happens?

Comparing L2, L3: Explain phase 1. 1.Describe what happened Do you notice a pattern? 3. 3.Scientists call this ________ Model building: Compare what you know now with what you wrote and diagrammed at the start of this investigation. What is similar and what is different in these two descriptions? Explain how your test 1.Was the prediction of your original model consistent with the data you collected? 2.Do the data provide support for unobservable processes in you model? 3.Do other possible explanations for the data exist, and if so, how strong is the evidence for these alternatives? 4.Should your model change in light of the evidence? Level 2Level 3