Part 3: Additional Discussion Leading Strategies
(1 or more additional lessons to follow Parts 1 and 2)
F. Learn Other Modes of discussion such as Model Competition, Consolidation, and Application
This section contains syllabus ideas for teacher educators with longer time allotted. Teachers can engage with activities in Parts I and II and then work with the following.
Model Competition Mode
Model Competition discussions can occur when two or more differing models have several students supporting them in a class. (One can use the phrase “Model Comparison” with students.) Have teachers read the Model Competition page for examples of strategies teachers can use to promote Model Competition discussions.
One can also analyze the Throat Structure Video Transcript of a discussion that took place during a middle school Life sciences lesson. The first section of this transcript illustrates the Model Competition Mode. This lesson began with a question given to small groups asking them to use a shared white board to generate an initial model of the throat: “How is your throat structured so that you can send food to your stomach? And so that you can send air to your lungs?” This activity generated several different initial models. The focus here is on the ensuing whole class discussion. The downloadable transcript includes pictures of the student models. It is best initially to view the pictures showing the sequence models. Teachers can then try to identify the strategies being used by the teacher in the transcript. The transcript has two blank columns for filling in strategies recognized by the readers, who can work individually, in small groups, or as a class. Readers can refer to the lists of strategies in the Key for Model Evaluation and Modification Strategies and Key for Model Generation Strategies. Also ask teachers to see if they can tell where model competition ends and model evolution (evaluation and modification) begins. Here the Competition Mode happens before the Model Evolution Mode, but the reverse can also occur.
Teachers can also view a Diagram of the Whole Class Discussion on Throat Structure. This shows four levels of scaffolding strategies operating in parallel. This could also be used as a ‘key’ to highlights of the strategies used by the teacher.
Consolidation and Application Mode
Have teachers read the Model Consolidation and Application page (abbreviated ‘Model Application’) within the Strategy Catalog section of this site to learn about ways to bring closure to a unit or lesson. Also included there are examples of asking students to apply what they have learned.
Optional: Readers can gain a more theoretical perspective, set within the background of research on science education, in the article Large Scale Scientific Modeling Practices. This paper discusses the top two levels of our strategies: Classroom Modeling Modes and Modeling Phases. The full set of strategies in this article are organized slightly differently than is shown on the Full Theory page of this site, but the major ideas are the same.
Big picture perspective: Teachers who want the big picture can view and discuss Figures 1 and 4 on the Full Theory page, and/or the Diagram of the Whole Class Discussion on Throat Structure.
Supplemental Activities on the Nature of Explanatory Models and Model Evolution using History of Science
These activities could be done at the beginning of Part 2 or later.
- Working in groups of three, teachers can be asked to brainstorm about famous “explanatory models” or theories that have evolved (or completely tanked!) over time. What caused them to change? (Suggested models: the solar system, the spread of disease, inheritance, continental drift, atomic structure, spontaneous generation, the ether, life on Mars, global warming, extinction of the dinosaurs, cold fusion, etc.)
- Ask each group to share 1 or 2 of the models they discussed and what they knew about the factors that caused the models to change over time.
- The videoclip Ptolemaic Planetary Model can be shown as an example of how the explanatory model for the apparent retrograde motion of Saturn has evolved through history.
- Provide students with a brief history of models of the solar system, such as this one: Introduction to the Solar System. The Solar System Assignment page can be assigned to accompany the site as homework. Ask teachers to attempt to understand the diagram “Model Development in Theories of the Solar System” on the bottom of the assignment page.
- In pairs, in the next class, ask teachers to share their impressions of the Solar System Assignment, focusing on the Model Evolution Diagram.
- Have a group discussion. How is the “Model Development in Theories of the Solar System” on the assignment page similar to the Diagram of the Whole Class Discussion on Throat Structure (discussed above under Model Competition). How is it different?
Alternatively, teachers can compare the solar system diagram to the excerpt from the paper on A Modeling Discussion For A Batteries And Bulbs Circuit that includes diagrams of student-teacher interactions (they may have read that paper in followng Part 2 of this Syllabus section).
Microteaching
Course on Model-Based Discussion Leading for Pre-Service Science Teachers – with Microteaching by Grant Williams is a description of a preservice course from 2016 that devoted a majority of the course time to modeling. Although most instructors will not have this much time, we provide this here as another possibility, partly because of its description of an interesting microteaching component with peer evaluations of modeling strategies.
References
Other papers that could be useful for background information, or for readings in a course, are available on our Articles page.
Downloads
Course on Model-Based Discussion Leading for Pre-Service Science Teachers – with Microteaching.docx
Diagram of the Whole Class Discussion on Throat Structure.pdf
Key for Model Evaluation and Modification Strategies.pdf
Key for Model Generation Strategies.pdf
Modeling Discussion For A Batteries And Bulbs Circuit (Articles)
Throat Structure Video Transcript.docx
Solar System AssignmentR.docx