A Year-Long Study of Fourth Graders? Sense-Making with Modeling across Phenomena

The research question guiding this study was, How do features of models and the contexts in which they are taught and used influence upper elementary students’ sense-making and engagement in the practice of constructing and using models? An emphasis on engaging students in authentic and meaningful inquiry has led to a renewed focus on incorporating the scientific practices in science instruction. One practice central to the work of scientists is scientific modeling (Duschl, 2008; Manz, 2012). This study investigated how engaging in the practice of scientific modeling through the interpretation and construction of models influenced students’ sense-making about scientific concepts and epistemological ideas related to modeling. The study took place in one 4th grade class across an entire academic year of science instruction. The teacher enacted a project-based learning science curriculum, comprised of three units, the development of which was guided by the Next Generation Science Standards and Common Core State Standards. Each unit had a different central phenomenon (i.e., erosion, renewable energy sources, communication), but all units covered concepts related to energy and energy transfer. During each unit, students interpreted or constructed physical, paper-and-pencil, or animated computerized models. Case study and design-based research methods were used to conduct an instrumental case study of the modeling events in one classroom with 36 students. Data sources included: video and audio recordings, field notes, researcher memos, student artifacts, assessments, and interviews with focal students during each instructional unit. The case was comprised of multiple sub-cases at the levels of the class and individual students. Class sub-cases detailed the ways in which engagement in the practice of modeling influenced students’ discussions during whole-class instruction in each of the three units. Individual students’ sub-cases documented the conceptual and epistemological sense-making trajectories of focal students within and across units of instruction. Focal students were selected for each unit to reflect a range of prior knowledge – low, typical, high – using unit pre-assessment measures. The interpretation and construction of different types of models across a range of phenomena supported students and the teacher to introduce and take up ideas related to the scientific concepts in the units and epistemological aspects of modeling. Focal students demonstrated growth in their conceptual understandings related to the phenomena in each unit; however, students struggled to apply their understanding related to energy transfer in the more abstract contexts of renewable energy sources and communication. In addition, low levels of prior knowledge influenced specific students’ sense-making, suggesting that students may require a threshold of prior knowledge to engage productively in the practice of modeling. Students demonstrated a trajectory of epistemological sense-making that began by discussing the purpose of models, followed by ways to improve the communicative power of models, and then the use of data to inform model construction. Constructing models provided insight into students’ sense-making related to concepts and epistemological ideas related to modeling. The ability to include animation of student-constructed models also provided opportunities for students to show processes at work in the phenomena studied (e.g., erosion caused by moving water, electricity generation using wind and water, and the relationship between volume and distance). These findings suggest that engaging in the practice of modeling can support students’ scientific sense-making. Implications for curriculum design, instructional practice, teacher learning and professional development, and policy are considered.PHDEducation & PsychologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143957/1/merbaker_1.pd

Critical thinking: Integration into the middle school literature classroom

The pendulum of educators\u27 interests often swings back and forth. In the current climate of high stakes assessment, there appears to be a greater emphasis placed on literal recall of information when reading. While in the short term, this may benefit score reports, there is a concern that higher order thinking skills, such as analysis, will fall by the wayside. In so doing, there may be long term effects on the citizenry of this country. A lack of shared experiences, paired with little or no opportunity to discuss and discern, could lead to an inability to participate in and manage a complex form of government, such as a democracy. In today\u27s middle school literature classrooms, however, there is room for all types of thinking: from the simple to the complex. Teachers who desire to create an atmosphere that values the application of a variety of thinking can make their classrooms into communites that offer students the opportunity to think in a myriad of ways. These opportunities may be explicitly modeled by the educator and take the form of whole and small group discussion, developing questioning skills and using journal writing as a tool to develop meta-cognition

Aerospace medicine and biology: A continuing bibliography with indexes, supplement 203

This bibliography lists 150 reports, articles, and other documents introduced into the NASA scientific and technical information system in January 1980

MY LIBERATING APPROACH EDU-POLITICAL THEORIES

The practical results of current innovative methods and approaches which have been formulated based on Imperialism' theoretician theories are falling short of expectation in the present complicated competitive world’s circumstances: They are contributing to uncivilized detrimental-to-peace peasant societies. The present article, as such, gives a brief but to the point introduction to this researcher’s (Hosseini, 2000, 2020) seminal holistic revolutionary liberating didactic approach known as Competitive Team-Based Learning (CTBL) as a significant alternative to the present doomed-to-failure colonial educational approaches. Most importantly, it sheds light on this researcher's edu-political theories namely Cognitive Socio-Political Language Learning Theory and Multiple Input-Output Hypothesis based upon which he formulated CTBL. The article then seeks to throw into relief CTBL's distinguishing features and characteristics which make it a catalyst for transformation and change and elaborates howabouts of its contribution to the decline of the present Imperialist’s methods and approaches. The findings of some researchers on the effectiveness of CTBL as well as some significant suggestions to researchers, educators and educational policy makers have also found a place at the end of this article. CTBL is this researcher’s proactive sophisticated reaction to the social / political circumstances he and his family members along with the other marginalized/deprived communities are suffering from. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0720/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p&gt

Methods Analysis: Comparing Competitive Team-Based Learning with other Instructional Methods and Approaches

Having introduced Competetive Team Based Learning (CTBL), my innovative approach to teaching, this paper presents a cogent and critical analysis and comparison of CTBL with other popular methods /approaches in the arena of Education in general and Language Teaching in particular, in terms of their distinguishing features and characteristics. Among such methods and approaches are Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), Collaborative Learning (ColL), Interactive Learning (IntL), and Cooperative Learning (CL) methods which are appreciated particularly in the U.S. and in the West. A synthesis of the distinguishing drawbacks of the comparison methods and approaches is part of the article. The chapter also explicates how CTBL, my educational innovation, that has been formulated based on my edu-political theories (Hosseini, 2023) is, in the last analysis, an approach to human security and prosperity and world peace. I hope this chapter would contribute to making a sound decision on implementing CTBL in the arena of (Language) Education for the ultimate goal of peace making and more compassionate civilizations building

NEED, SIGNIFICANCE AND RELEVANCE OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY IN OUR WORLD

The complexity and speed of business, societal and technological changes make it difficult for schools to educate students to be effective in their adulthood. A survey of top-managers confirms that new employees often need considerable assistance to develop the skills and competences, such as problem-solving and decision making, needed for success. We propose a new, collaborative eLearning technology that will (a) assist organizations in this development process, and (b) allow them better to solve the myriad of organizational problems they encounter. The technology draws on resources both within and outside these organizations

Building the Clinical Bridge to Advance Education, Research, and Practice Excellence

The University of Michigan School of Nursing and the Health System partnered to develop an undergraduate clinical education model as part of a larger project to advance clinical education, practice, and scholarship with education serving as the clinical bridge that anchors all three areas. The clinical model includes clusters of clinical units as the clinical home for four years of a student's education, clinical instruction through team mentorship, clinical immersion, special skills preparation, and student portfolio. The model was examined during a one-year pilot with junior students. Stakeholders were largely positive. Findings showed that Clinical Faculty engaged in more role modeling of teaching strategies as Mentors assumed more direct teaching used more clinical reasoning strategies. Students reported increased confidence and competence in clinical care by being integrated into the team and the Mentor's assignment. Two new full time faculty roles in the Health System support education, practice, and research

“The taking-something-to-be-true [that] cannot be communicated”: remarks on the (lack of) communicability to understand the problem of social irrationality

Since learning how “to make use of your own Understanding” (WA, AA 08: 35), and “seeking the supreme touchstone of truth in oneself (i.e., in one's own Reason)” (WDO, AA 08: 146, footnote) – in a word: to enlighten oneself – is a process; and since Reason, in such a process, “needs attempts, practice and instruction” (IaG, AA 08: 19), it is only slowly that one can arrive at Enlightenment (cf. WA, AA 08: 36). As a matter of fact, the process of Enlightenment involves culture, i.e. the cultivation of the human being and his or her rational predispositions. And of fundamental importance in this process are communicability, participation and publicity –  i.e., the possibility of making an idea public. Now, since these abilities are so important for Enlightenment, everything that does not allow the communication of ideas and thoughts to each and every human being is diametrically opposed to this process. This seems to be the case with the phenomenon of social irrationality and cognitive vices. The present paper aims to highlight how the problem of (lack of) communicability proves essential to understanding the phenomenon of social irrationality