Visual Modeling Strategies in Science Teaching

This NSF-funded project seeks principles of instruction for developing students' visualizable models in science, including design principles for curriculum development, technological tools, and new pedagogical principles.

We are pursuing specific aspects of this goal by conducting detailed studies of teaching and learning in the context of innovative model based curricula in middle school biology, and in middle and high school physical science. Two parallel tracks of the research are:

• studying classroom interaction patterns fostering the learning of visual models, and
• analyzing the use of computer simulations and animations in large class discussions to scaffold students' ability to construct their own animated mental models.