Helping Students Construct Robust Conceptual Models

Modeling Instruction has been practiced in science and mathematics classrooms across the United States and around the world for over 25 years. Force Concept Inventory (FCI) scores from over 30,000 students confirm that this approach is one of the most successful science education reforms in the last 50 years. Modeling Instruction arranges the subject area under study into a handful of basic conceptual models. Students working together in groups of three or four uncover, construct, test, and apply these models as they engage in carefully chosen laboratory activities followed by model exploration and deployment exercises.