Understanding and Fostering Model Based Learning In Science

University Of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst MA

Investigators

Abstract

This project will study learning and teaching processes in several exemplary science curricula in different subject areas. All of them use new approaches to teaching that are unique in the way that they foster active learning of conceptual models on the part of the student. At present many of the general principles underlying the learning that occurs in these lessons are poorly understood. However, advances in cognitive science have produced a very promising new theory of model-based learning which can help to analyze and describe these teaching techniques. The investigators will use a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to study these innovative units and analyze them using these new cognitive science concepts. The overall goal is to find principles of instruction for developing students' visualizable models in science. Central to the project will be case studies of skilled teachers who are adept at fostering model construction by students. The problem is to identify the strategies by which teachers are able to do this. The project will analyze teaching strategies and resulting student learning processes in detail using protocol analysis techniques. Follow up studies will make quantitative comparisons between groups that complement the qualitative case studies, and pre and post testing will measure the size of learning gains in different areas. In a second part of the project, key elements of model-based learning theory will be elaborated via the analysis of expert learning protocols. Similarities and differences between expert and student processes will be examined that highlight new ways of understanding student learning processes that suggest new teaching strategies.