Workshop Descriptions
These workshops are structured inquiry approaches to high school chemistry and physics teaching that incorporate computer technology and insights from the Common Core State Standards, Next Generation Science Standard & current education research. Modeling Instruction
Physics I: Modeling Physics Workshop
Workshop Eligibility: This professional development workshop introduces participants to a structured inquiry approach to high school physics teaching that incorporates computer technology and insights from physics education research. Emphasis is placed on the use of basic models and the modeling method in teaching mechanics topics.
Teachers will develop skills in fostering scientific discourse and presentation, and in assessment of student learning. By designing and carrying out a series of investigations that use the modeling method, teachers will practice data collection skills, problem solving approaches, and Socratic questioning techniques while interacting with other physics teaching colleagues.
Chemistry I: Modeling Chemistry Workshop
Chemistry Modeling Instruction is designed to outfit secondary chemistry teachers with the tools, experiences, and background needed to improve their chemistry instruction through the use of a proven and award-winning methodology known as modeling.
- Guide participants to develop a small set of conceptual models that students can use to explain key phenomena in chemistry commonly taught up to stoichiometry. This includes core physical and chemical properties of matter, energy, and changes in matter beginning with simple particle models and progressing through early atomic models.
- Identify and use key laboratory investigations as the core of instruction.
- Lead students to develop skills from CCSS/NGSS such as reasoning abstractly and quantitatively (including ratio and proportional relationships), evaluating experimental design, analyzing and interpreting data, constructing arguments from evidence, and developing and using models of natural phenomena.
- Address common student misconceptions about matter.
- Use coordinated representations (descriptive, graphical, mathematical, and diagrammatic) of the core models to enhance student understanding.
- Create a student-centered chemistry classroom.
Biology I: Modeling Biology Workshop
Biology Modeling Instruction is designed to outfit secondary biology teachers with the tools, experiences, and background needed to improve their biology instruction through the use of a proven and award-winning methodology known as modeling.
As a result of this course, the participant will be able to:
- Comprehend and implement a model-centered, guided inquiry method of teaching high school biology. Topics covered: Experimental Design, Characteristics of Life and Classification, Evolution, and Energy.
- Integrate computer courseware effectively into the biology curriculum.
- Utilize an electronic network support and a learning community among participants.
- Strengthen local institutional support for participants as school leaders in disseminating standards-based reform in science education.
Instructor Bios
Physics Modeling: Jon Anderson, M.Ed. Physics Education Consultant/Minnesota
Jon
Anderson has an M.Ed. in Physics Education and has taught physics for 38 years at both the high school and college levels. He also works as a consultant for the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) as the PhysTEC Teacher-in-Residence (TIR) Coordinator and as the PhysicsBowl Academic Coordinator. He was named an AAPT Fellow in 2017 and received the Homer L. Dodge Citation for Distinguished Service to AAPT in 2018. Additionally, he has spent 24 years as a member of the Physics Force outreach team from the University of Minnesota, 20 years as a QuarkNet Lead Teacher, and has been a modeling workshop leader for 13 years.
Chemistry Modeling: Brenda Royce, University High School (CSU Fresno Campus)
Brenda has an
M.Ed. in Curriculum and began
teaching high school science 28 years ago and had the good fortune of being trained in Modeling Instruction after only 3 years of teaching. She currently teaches chemistry at University High School, a college-prep charter school in Fresno, where she's been since 2001. In 2000 she was invited to lead her first workshop in modeling physics, and has since led a number modeling worships in physics, chemistry, and curriculum development in four states, including an interdisciplinary modeling workshop at Cal Poly in the summer of 2009. Brenda served on the team that developed the MI based curriculum materials in chemistry for AMTA, and has also been a conference presenter at NSTA, WRNS, BCCE, and ChemEd.
Biology Modeling: Frank Novakowski, Wheaton Warrenville South High School, Wheaton, IL
Frank is in his 21st year of teaching at Wheaton Warrenville South HS in Wheaton, IL. He took his first modeling workshop in physics in 2003. He began leading biology modeling workshops in 2014. He has led workshops in Illinois and in Florida, through FIU’s Education Effect program, which focuses on improving education and opportunity for under-represented students in urban Miami. He also travels throughout Illinois, presenting 1-day modeling workshops for various school districts.