Science Modeling Talks

This week, Mark talks with Phil Root about the differences he sees between teaching using modeling methodology at the high school level and the college level. They talk about Phil's experience helping to adapt modeling materials for physical science to the Next Generation Science Standards, and how much he enjoyed building a storyline for those units. They talk about the advanced modeling workshops, including the new materials Phil helped to develop for them, and the various topics covered. They finish with Phil's advice for folks just starting out on a modeling instruction journey.

Guests

Phil Root taught high school chemistry and physics at Chandler High School from 2004-2013, and has been teaching chemistry at Scottsdale Community College since 2013. Phil teaches using modeling methods at the college level, and also leads modeling workshops. He helped to develop the physical science curriculum for Next Generation Science Standards and worked with Levi Torrison to develop a thermodynamics modeling workshop and extend the Chem 2 workshop to a full three week course.

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Highlights

[11:05] Phil Root: "AMTA was actively engaging students before it was cool."

[17:08] Phil Root, on advanced modeling workshops: "you will have activities, labs, facilitation experience that you can take with you directly back to your classroom the next year and put it to place right away to build your storyline in your classroom and make it stronger."

[19:13] Phil Root: "My goal now isn't to get my students to solve a problem a certain way or to get an answer. It's to probe their thinking about the relationships that they're using or how are they making sense of the mathematical relationships they're using or the conceptual frameworks that they're building."

Resources

Ep 62 Transcript

 

This month, Mark talks with the executive officer of the AMTA, Ray Howanski. They talk about the importance of getting at student thinking and effective student-led discussions, and the transformation that happens when students start being the scientists rather than just looking to the authority figure for the "right answers." They talk about the difference between modeling workshops and distance learning courses and the value of time spent face-to-face, especially for a teacher's first or first in-depth experience with modeling instruction. They discuss what the AMTA has been working on and what's coming soon as well as ways to get involved in the work that the AMTA is doing to improve curricular materials and set the standards for some new technology.

Guests

Ray Howanski worked for Ridley School District teaching Chemistry and Biology for 22 years and then as a Curriculum Director for the next 13 years. He worked with their science department to grow modeling instructional practices during which time they inverted the science sequence to offer a Physics - Chemistry - Biology progression. Ray is currently serving as the executive officer for AMTA.

 

Highlights

[4:34] Ray Howanski "The one thing I'd say that I'd really emphasize and where I think is really impactful about modeling instruction is the listening. Is the learning where the student thinking is."

[7:24] Ray Howanski "So when the students are all figuring out whatever it is they're looking at whatever event they're investigating, it's the evidence that speaks. It's the data that speaks."

[23:22] Ray Howanski "That's why it has to be really centered around sensemaking and having the students gather information in the lab, and then work together with each other to kind of make sense of it, present it, and that's the -ing in modeling"

Resources

Ep 61 Transcript

Get Involved! [email protected]

This month, Mark talks with F. Joseph Merlino about the work he has done using grants from the National Science Foundation to reform math and science education. They talk about his work in Egypt overhauling their whole education system, working with the decision-makers to identify their biggest challenges and then how they can design school around preparing students to solve those big problems. They talk in particular about the success of the government-funded STEM schools and the role that modelers played in training the educators. They talk about formative assessment, and how it is not only for the benefit of the teacher, but also the New Era-New Urgency: the Case for Repurposing Education. They talk about the purpose for education or for teaching the particular things we teach, and the "shadows" that every teacher or reform person must confront even before walking into a school.

Guests

F. Joseph Merlino's academic background is in chemical engineering and cognitive developmental psychology. He is the president of the 21st Century Partnership for STEM Education (17 years). He has been a PI and project director of numerous large-scale NSF, IES, and USAID projects, including a Targeted Math Science Partnership involving 45 school districts and 13 colleges and universities. For the past 12 years, he has been directing a STEM project for the Egyptian Ministry of Education establishing 21 New STEM high schools and new STEM teacher prep programs in 5 Egyptian universities. He has employed many modelers as consultants on these projects. He is co-author of a new book entitled NEW ERA-NEW URGENCY: The Case for Repurposing Education by Lexington Books (2024)

Highlights

[4:47] F Joseph Merlino "Actually, this idea that physics instruction and science instruction could be different, goes back to the 1880s."

[17:01] F Joseph Merlino "we had to use the assessments as a foot in the door as a way to open the door to then introduce a different pedagogical approach."

[24:06] F Joseph Merlino "the idea of the formative assessment that we talk about is that if you're cooking something, for example, if you're cooking, a dish, a stew, for example, you sample it along the way, and then you add ingredients as you need in order to suit it to the taste."

Resources

Ep 60 Transcript

New Era - New Urgency Website

New Era - New Urgency Book Club (starts Jan 2025)

In this episode, Mark talks with Patrick Daisley, long-time modeler and science teacher. They talk about challenges he had when a beginner modeler, good advice that he took and made part of his own routine, and developing a modeling instruction framework and curriculum for integrated science, physics and chemistry. They talk about the origin of the AMTA and Patrick's part in it.

Guests

Patrick taught physics, science and mathematics for 29 years, including freshman level integrated science, physics, AP-1 physics and AP-C physics. Patrick earned a Masters Degree in Science Education in 1998 and became a National Board Certified Teacher in 2008. He earned a doctorate in Educational Leadership at Washington State University in 2016.

Patrick's first experience with Modeling was as a phase 3 participant in the Leadership Modeling Workshop at UC Davis during the summers of 1998 and 1999. He continued to be involved, spending several summers at ASU working with other modelers on integrated physics-chemistry modeling and attending an Advanced Modeling Workshop in 2005. He co-led a Physics Modeling Workshop at ASU in 2008 and another in Spokane, Washington in 2010. He was one of the modelers who founded AMTA in 2005, serving as its first president from 2005-2006 and then serving on the board as Treasurer and Founding Board Member until 2010.

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Highlights

[11:34] Patrick Daisley "Invite [parents] to come in where he could then show them some of the things that the students were doing, like with the labs and things of that nature, and maybe even some of the work that they had on whiteboards, and explain what it meant to be in a modeling class."

[24:55] Patrick Daisley "It's a pedagogy for how to teach students. And the materials are just sort of secondary to that. I just wish I had known how powerful it was."

Resources

Ep 59 Transcript

In this recast episode from July 2021, Mark talks with Marta Stoeckle, who teaches physics and other science courses outside St. Paul, Minnesota. They talk about the improvements Marta experienced in her teaching after attending a modeling workshop. This led to their discussion of Marta's research in STEM education. Finally, they talk about the new way for modelers to connect -- the AMTA Discord server.

Guest Bio

Marta Stoeckle has been teaching science at Tartan High School just outside of St. Paul, Minnesota since 2009. She teaches mostly Physics and AP Physics 1, with occasional sections of other courses including basic chemistry and 9th grade physical & earth science. She is also a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Minnesota’s STEM education program where she is studying how classroom experiences influence science identity, especially for underrepresented students. Marta has served on the communications committee for AMTA's board and helped get the Discord server started.

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Highlights

[10:16] Marta "Labs came up with almost every single student as something really important. What was really interesting to me is I had a lot of students who talked about the guided inquiry labs and the paradigm labs that are an important part of modeling as something that really helped them feel like a science person. And when they were able to see how the data they took led to that physics knowledge, they felt a really strong sense of ownership over their learning and really started to feel good at physics"

[21:21] Marta: "I was introduced to this idea of activity before concept and then concept before vocabulary...No matter what phrasing they use to describe it, but my experience has been, especially with ELL kids and especially with kids who have learning differences, especially around reading, that's been really beneficial because by the time that we get to that technical word, they have something in their head to attach it to, instead of trying to cram in all of these complicated words before they really have any meaning."

Resources

Ep 58 Transcript

Article: Musings on Instructional Shifts

Article: Gender Self-assessment in Classroom Experiences in AP physics

Pivot Interactives

Article: Strategies for Supporting Equitable Group Work

Mark talks with veteran physics teacher and proponent of physics first in high school. He talks about how the connecting thread of energy should start in middle school and continue through 12th grade.

They talk about the Cactus Caucus, advocating to get funding for more teacgers to get state certified to teach STEM classes in Arizona. Then they talk about the Arizona STEM Acceleration Project, which brings on teacher fellows each year. One benefit of this program for all teachers is the free content produced by their STEM fellows, including some modeling-friendly materials in their lesson plan archive.

Guests

Mike Vargas is a 20-year veteran Physics teacher who is a founding member of the Cactus Caucus, a group of Arizona Physics teachers who helped pass legislation to advance science teacher education in Arizona. This effort led to the Arizona Department of Education’s “Get Set for STEM”program which aimed to increase the number of higher-level STEM teachers state wide. This initiative helped increase the number of physics teachers in Arizona by nearly 20%. Mike is also a founding member of STEMteachersPHX and has extensive ties to the Arizona Science Teachers Association, the American Modeling Teachers Association, and the American Association of Physics Teachers. Mike served as a board member to the Northern Arizona University K12 Center and has been an active participant in the Arizona Education Foundations efforts to promote STEM education with its “TeachSTEM” program. Mike has served on the Air Force Association National Aerospace Council for the last few years and co-led the Space Force’s first national education outreach project, “STEM to Space”. Mike served on the Federal Coordination in STEM’s Interagency Working Group for Strategic Partnerships (IWG-SP) and served as a Department of Defense Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow to the Department of the Air Force K12 STEM National Office as well as the Department of Defense’s Strategic Manufacturing Education Workforce Development program. His policy and strategic partnership experience has been essential for the creation of Arizona State University’s newest initiative - The Arizona STEM Acceleration Project. He is currently the Co-Principal investigator and Senior Program Manager for ASAP.

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Highlights

[3:44] Mike Vargas "You should really start in middle school and have that energy thread going through all the way up through senior year, because you can tie that to all the sciences, right?"

[20:05] Mike Vargas "we're curating a website. It's STEM [email protected], and there's gonna be about 2000 lessons on here, at the end of the day. They're all curated, they're all made by teachers, for teachers. It's kinda like teachers pay teachers, but free"

Resources

Ep 57 Transcript

Arizona STEM Acceleration Project

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Mark and Amanda talk about her background as a middle school teacher, the STEM master's program she took at ASU, which introduced her to modeling instruction and eventually led her to found the Cactus Caucus, which advocated for funding for teachers to recertify to teach physics, chemistry and other high-needs areas in Arizona schools. They talk about her move from teaching to the Arizona STEM Acceleration Project at ASU, how this project works, and about building community among our teachers.

Guests

Amanda Whitehurst spent thirteen years teaching third through eighth grade in Arizona Schools with a Masters of Engineering in STEM for Middle School from ASU. She was a founding board member as well as former Vice President, President, Past President, and Executive Officer of STEMteachersPHX, an Arizona based professional development non-profit that works to de-silo teachers in STEM subjects and develop communities to support high-quality teaching in classrooms. Amanda Co-Founded the Arizona Cactus Caucus which successfully developed a coalition for $1.2M in legislative funding for the 3-year STEM Teacher Professional Development Pilot Program which the Arizona Dept. of Education adopted as the “Get Set for STEM” scholarship program to increase the number of high school physics teachers in Arizona and increase the access of students of all grade levels to high-quality STEM education. She is currently the Co-Principal investigator and Senior Program Manager for the Arizona STEM Acceleration Project; a $10M grant from the Arizona Department of Education which in its first year supported over 450 STEM teachers across Arizona and impacted almost 90K students.

Highlights

[6:05] Amanda Whitehurst, on modeling at the middle school level compared to high school level: "there's a lot more scaffolding that has to go on in terms of getting kids to do that discourse and that dialogue. But there are fewer bad habits that you have to break from them from as well."

[7:57] Amanda Whitehurst "I would say that modeling really gave me the tools to teach in the way that I'd always wanted to teach, but couldn't figure out how to implement effectively. "

[21:24] Amanda Whitehurst "if teachers have connections to each other and they feel supported, that they're more likely to stay in the profession."

[29:14] Amanda Whitehurst "one of the values of this project is that so much that teachers do, and so much the professional development organizations do is for the love of students. But that always ends up to mean they're doing it for free. And one of the values was that your time is worthwhile and you deserve to be paid for your time."

Resources

Ep 56 Transcript

Arizona STEM Acceleration Project

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In this episode, Mark talks with Paul Sasso, a physics and astronomy teacher from Maine. They talk about Paul's experience as a new teacher and his introduction to modeling instruction, and later to the new modeling astronomy materials. After taking the modeling astronomy workshop and returning as both participant and "intern," Paul was invited to attend modeling workshop leader training. They talk about that experience and then dive into more thoughts on the astronomy and exoplanets materials, the virtual course, and engaging hands-on activities for the students.

Guests

Paul L. Sasso is a high school Science teacher in Maine and for the past 13 years has been teaching all levels of Physics, and more recently Astronomy. He also directs the STEM Makerspace at school, which is a hub for 3D printing,and robotics (supporting students projects schoolwide). Paul has been a Modeler since 2017 when he took his first workshop in Physics Mechanics. He comes to teaching from a career in Engineering with Motorola, Siemens and General Dynamics. Restoring old VWs, remote camping, stargazing, photography and keeping up with his wife keep Paul busy the rest of the time.

Highlights

[15:32] Paul Sasso "[In the astronomy modeling class] There are people that have been teaching astronomy for a long time, but I believe the course has so much to offer, and just the different approach to it and the use of real data and the use of very current, real relevant, data science activities for the students. So there's a lot to be had, a lot to be taken away from it, no matter what your level."

Resources

Ep 55 Transcript

[8:37] Unistellar Citizen Science

[14:41] Current Astronomy Modeling with Exoplanets course, already underway

In this episode, Mark talks with chemistry teacher Scott Milam. They talk about his interest in the history of chemistry thinking and the development of models in chemistry as far back as hundreds of years ago. They talk about how Scott thinks about teaching chemistry, and the questions he is focusing on right now. This leads them to talk about setting up assessments so he focuses very intentionally on key goals in each unit. They also talk about his chemistry content, his YouTube Channel, and Scott's book Teaching Introductory Chemistry.

Guests

Scott Milam currently teaches chemistry and IB chemistry HL at Plymouth High School in Michigan. Scott holds a BS and MS in Chemistry. He completed his initial training in Modeling Instruction pedagogy in 2015, and has led workshops in 2018, 2020, and 2021. He helped lead the Intro to Modeling Instruction workshop 3 times and led the Chem I follow-up workshop this fall. Scott was the 2017 Michigan Science Teacher of the Year and was a 2019, 2021, and 2023 PAEMST finalist. Scott is the recipient of AMTA's 2023 Malcolm Wells Award Leadership and published "Teaching Introductory Chemistry" in 2022.

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Highlights

[2:32] Scott Milam "I find that me being able to add stories of the smartest people in the world at this time, having these thoughts that were incorrect into my instruction is really powerful for students in that it shows them it's okay to not be at perfection, that as long as you're progressing and moving up, that you're doing something useful and productive."

[15:45] Scott Milam "what I try and do is listen very carefully to what my top students are doing that's getting them to make sense of these different things, share that with all of the students."

Resources

Ep 54 Transcript

 

In this episode, Mark talks with Mark Lattery, professor of physics at University of Wisconson, OshKosh. He has taught using modeling methods since 1999. He does research in experimental particle physics and modeling methods. They talk about modeling physics in Mark Lattery's college-level physics course for non-majors, and how Mark first learned about modeling early in his teaching career.

Guests

Mark Lattery received a Ph. D. degree in experimental particle physics and a M.Ed. in curriculum and instruction from the University of Minnesota/Twin Cities. He is Distinguished Professor of Physics, the 2021 David Hestenes Award for Exceptional Contributions to Modeling Instruction recipient, and President of Modeling Teachers International, a new subsidiary of the American Modeling Teachers Association (AMTA). Lattery is also an experimental particle physicist and a member of the PANDA Collaboration at FAIR. For excellence in teaching, Lattery was named UW-System Wisconsin Teaching Scholar and Wisconsin Teaching Fellow. His research interests include physics education, experimental particle physics, and the history and philosophy of science. The author of many peer-reviewed research articles, Dr. Lattery has published in such diverse journals as Physical Review Letters, The Physics Teacher, School Science and Mathematics, Physics Education, and Science & Education. Dr. Lattery is author of the book, Deep Learning in Introductory Physics: Exploratory Studies of Model-Based Reasoning (Information Age Publishing, 2017).

Website

Highlights

[8:13] Mark Lattery "I guess the most important thing I've learned about modeling theory is the richness and diversity with which one can describe the scientific modeling process, and how we use that process to learn new things."

[32:34] Mark Lattery "if I give a two-day workshop, I come up with the simplest possible content that I can think of. So the focus is not on the subject matter content, but on the pedagogical aspects about models and modeling."

[34:22] Mark Lattery "within the modeling community, there's this open invitation, please join us and be part of creating what modeling in the classroom might look like in the future."

Resources

Ep 53 Transcript

UWOSH - Next Generation Modeling Courses for Teachers

[1:00] PANDA

[17:43] Deep Learning in Introductory Physics, Information Age Publishing

[28:54] Modeling Teachers International