This project will use video case studies to identify key strategies used by exemplary teachers to guide class discussions. The project will study teachers in the areas of high school mechanics and electricity, and middle school life sciences, and is designed to develop the constructs and language that will enable us to describe key discussion leading strategies for fostering scientific modeling and thinking skills, as well as conceptual understandings. The project will build on the results of classroom case studies as well as findings from studies of thinking processes in scientists. It will develop an integrated theoretical framework for model based learning and teaching in science.
Strategies for Leading Classroom Discussions Aimed at Core Ideas and Scientific Modeling Practices
Full Description
The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) have set goals for students to learn scientific models as disciplinary core ideas in addition to scientific reasoning practices and cross cutting ideas. Given these advances in national standards, educators are now asking for details about: (a) strategies for teaching the core disciplinary ideas; (b) how to teach the components of scientific thinking practices; and (c) how to integrate those practices with the teaching of core ideas. This project will use video case studies to identify key strategies used by exemplary teachers to guide class discussions toward these goals. The project will study teachers in the areas of high school mechanics and electricity, and middle school life sciences, and is designed to develop the constructs and language that will enable us to describe key discussion leading strategies. Clarified descriptions of the strategies will be disseminated to teachers via a website on discussion leading strategies for building models as core ideas, and accompanied by real classroom examples.
In order to organize the strategies, the project will also combine the results of the classroom case studies with findings from studies of thinking processes in scientists to develop an integrated theoretical framework for model based learning and teaching in science. The theoretical framework will serve as a guide for organizing instruction, integrating research findings, and sequencing strategies for teacher educators and curriculum developers. The framework will start from practices in the NGSS standards for modeling and add detail by identifying smaller practices and supporting teaching strategies at four different time scale levels--from 5-second engagements with mental simulations, to the use of minutes-long constructive reasoning processes, to larger modeling cycles lasting roughly 10 minutes to hours, to model construction modes that can last 15 minutes to days. A simplified version of the theoretical framework will give a way to introduce teachers to strategies in an organized manner, one level at a time. The Discovery Research K-12 program (DRK-12) seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students and teachers, through research and development of innovative resources, models and tools (RMTs). Projects in the DRK-12 program build on fundamental research in STEM education and prior research and development efforts that provide theoretical and empirical justification for proposed projects.
In addition to eight publications, the project has produced a 45 page website titled:
Developing Models in the Classroom: Discussion Leading Strategies for Fostering Scientific Reasoning
and Conceptual Understanding
This website describes a set of discussion-leading strategies to help students as they learn Scientific Reasoning Practices for Modeling. In addition to general strategies for fostering student participation in whole-class discussions, this site presents many specific strategies to foster modeling practices and deeper conceptual understanding of content through discussions. Thus it is focused on promoting both process (thinking skill) goals and content goals at the same time.
However, many science teachers who want to promote thinking skills complain that it is difficult to know how to start and maintain large group discussions in their classes. This site aims to give teachers strategies for promoting successful discussions that use student thinking to build qualitative conceptual models in science. Strong qualitative models provide an essential foundation for understanding quantitative models later.
A Guided Inquiry Approach for Teacher Educators, Teachers, Curriculum Developers, and Educational Researchers
A multitude of examples of teacher ‘moves’ (strategies) from actual classroom discussions led by experienced modeling teachers are included, organized by the type of objective and reasoning they foster. The pedagogical approach used in the examples is a type of guided inquiry, an approach that lies in between pure inquiry and pure lecture. The site is primarily oriented toward teacher educators for use as a resource for a graduate level education course. It should also be of interest to teachers, curriculum developers, educational researchers, and others interested in scientific modeling in the classroom.
Some Questions Addressed in the Website
- How can a teacher get a discussion started, and how can it be maintained?
- How can teachers be helped to build up discussion-leading skills gradually? How can teachers help students build discussion-participation skills?
- What should teachers do when students’ alternative or partial conceptions surface in discussion? How can teachers respond without dismissing student thinking, while maintaining progress toward content goals?
- How can teachers teach students scientific thinking skills in class and still reach content goals?
- (For USA users of NGSS) How do teachers foster Modeling Practices in a way that helps students master Disciplinary Core Ideas along with Crosscutting Concepts such as reasoning about systems?
PUBLICATIONS
Clement, J.J. (2025). Identifying multiple levels of heuristic reasoning used in scientific model construction: A framework grounded in imagistic processing. In: Ippoliti, E., Sterpetti, F. (eds) The Heuristic View: Logic, Mathematics, and Science (pp. 133-170). Synthese Library, vol 502. Springer, Cham. Doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-94709-4_8 (Postprint: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/6d5ty_v1 --click download symbol, upper right-hand corner there)
This chapter consolidates a set of important heuristic practices used by expert scientists for constructing
innovative scientific models from three books, including studies in the history of genetics and
electromagnetism, and an expert think-aloud study in mechanics. Twenty-four strategies are identified,
most of which are field-general. Patterns in their use suggest a partially organized hierarchy of
interconnected strategies and substrategies, contrary to the view that heuristics are simply tried in random
order. Strategies at four different size and time scale levels are described. Many of the strategies utilize
Grounded Imagistic Processes, such as imagistic mental simulation, an important alternative to deduction
for evaluating a model by running it. The framework links higher level, serially organized processes with
lower level, imagery-based processes. Its intermediate degree of organization is neither anarchistic, nor
fully algorithmic. This integrative synthesis expands the domain of scientific practices beyond those included in NGSS. This is a more compact paper than the next one cited below.
The Nunez, Williams, and Price papers below document teachers scaffolding specific levels of these strategies in whole classroom discussions.
Clement, J. J. (2022). Multiple levels of heuristic reasoning processes in scientific model construction. Frontiers in Psychology, Cognition, 13. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.750713 (open access) https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.750713/full
Nunez-Oviedo, M. and Clement, J. (2019). Large scale scientific modeling practices that can organize science instruction at the unit and lesson levels. Frontiers in Education. doi:10.3389/feduc.2019.00068 https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2019.00068/full
Williams, G. and Clement, J. (2019). Co-constructing models through whole class discussions in high school physics.In Sunal, D., Shemwell, J., Harrell, J. & Sunal, C.). Physics teaching and learning: Challenging the paradigm (pp. 85-109). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. PDF
Clement, J. J. (2018). Reasoning patterns in Galileo's analysis of machines and in expert protocols: Roles for analogy, imagery, and mental simulation. Topoi, 39(4), 973-985.
PDF 1.4 MB
Price, N., Stephens, A. L., Clement, J., & Nunez-Oviedo, M. (2017). Using imagery support strategies to develop powerful imagistic models. Science Scope, 41(4), 40-49.
PDF 1.2 MB
Stephens, L., & Clement, J. (2015). Use of physics simulations in whole class and small group settings: Comparative case studies. Computers & Education, 86, 137-156.
PDF 2.4 MB
Williams, G., & Clement, C. (2015). Identifying multiple levels of discussion-based teaching strategies for constructing scientific models. International Journal of Science Education, 37(1), 82-107.