PARENT SESSION
Oral Session #68: Ecological Education -- Research and Theory.
Presiding: L. Mueller
Wednesday, August 7. 1:00 PM to 4:45 PM. Grand Ballroom West, Radisson.
Using model-based reasoning approaches to guide K-12 teacher professional development.
Bohanan, Robert*,1, Broderick, Nichole1, Lucas-Lehrer, Deborah2, 1 University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI2 Madison Metropolitan School District, Madison, WI
ABSTRACT- We will describe the results of a 3- year study of a professional development program using long-term ecological research approaches to develop inquiry-based classroom curriculum and pedagogy in middle school science. SchoolYard Science (SYS) is a professional development project for middle school teachers and administrators in one school district. Eleven schools and 45 teachers-administrators have participated. The goal of the project is to help teachers develop curriculum and pedagogy necessary to guide and assess student-centered investigations of habitats near their school. We will describe the results from classrooms on student development using model-based reasoning instruction. Student work in these classrooms emphasized the development of a variety of representations or models of ecological investigations of aquatic habitats. These emphasize the creation of models that describe interactions within ecosystems. We will present cases of student work used to assess the development of their understanding of ecological concepts. We will describe rubrics which we have developed and refined to assess students ability to ask meaningful ecological research questions as well as those to evaluate student presentation of evidence and arguments. Our results suggests that model-based reasoning is a powerful tool to understand student learning and development as well as a useful guide to professional development and teacher preparation.
KEY WORDS: model-based reasoning, K-12 professional development, student-centered inquiry, LTER