Modeling Across the Curriculum: Scaling up Modeling using Technology
Janice D. Gobert, Paul Horwitz, Bob Tinker, Barbara C. Buckley, Uri J. Wilensky, Sharona Tal Levy, Chris Dede · eScholarship (California Digital Library) · 2003
Modeling environments, we believe, can make the most significant contribution of information technologies to improved science learning. A partnership of the Concord Consortium, Harvard and Northwestern Universities, with the help of the Josiah Quincy Upper School and the Fitchburg and Lowell Public Schools, is studying the impact of modeling on secondary science learning. The project uses tools we call CIE models: environments that incorporate core science content that students learn through inquiry and exploration. Increased learning is expected from a curriculum focused on a few core science concepts that students learn primarily through guided exploration of CIE models. The project goal is to test this expectation in real schools as students encounter a representative set of CIE models over three years in sequential physical science, chemistry, and biology courses. The tools that are used in these courses are Dynamica (Horwitz et al, 2001), Connected Chemistry (Stieff, M &