Portillo - Week 2 Readings

In order to be an effective science teacher, we need to provide an anchoring event with an underlying explanation to create a buy-in for students, along with essential questions so that students may develop explanations for the event. It is also important that teachers use models to engage students with skills, such as asking questions, designing studies, collecting and analyzing data, arguing about evidence, and communicating explanations. However, the author stresses the importance of not simply replicating models, but constructing, testing, evaluating, and revising models.



A theme that resonates in my mind from these readings is the ability to use models to do what scientists do: construct, test, evaluate, and revise models. Another resonating theme is structuring our lessons to engage students with an anchoring event (hook) that is relevant and allows the student to look for particular data.



A common theme among the readings is the need for evidence-based explanations. These are needed during the formation of models in a science class. The article suggest allowing primary models before learning content, and then allowing the students to revise their models as they learn more information. This reconstruction of models is, of itself, modeling for what scientists do in the real world. By allowing students to reconstruct models, the idea that scientists also do this, and do this often, is reinforced. AST reinforces this idea in the engagement article. The article reinforces the use of evidence-based models in class. Often these phenomena can be used as a hook at the beginning of class. By doing this, we can receive buy-in from our students while getting students to create evidence-based explanations that they can revise.



These are methods that I sometimes use in my own classroom, but often have trouble doing with abstract concepts. I have also found that often, the creation of models can be frustrating for the students, who do not want to be wrong. This anxiety of being wrong can sometimes even keep them from wanting to produce any product. However, without this productive struggle, the students will resort to simply learning facts, without understanding the process that must be applied to any scientific area. By using engaging activities to grab the students’ attention, and then creating evidence-based explanations or models, the students in my classroom have effectively learned the scientific process while also obtaining the results in learning that they need.