Description:

This interactive workshop empowers science educators to unlock student thinking through the strategic use of models. Participants will explore how conceptual, physical, mathematical, and diagrammatic models can make the unseen visible, revealing both student understanding and misconceptions in real time. Using engaging phenomena and structured reflection tools, educators will learn to incorporate modeling as an instructional strategy that fosters discourse, supports sensemaking, and acts as a formative assessment to monitor growth in scientific thinking over time. Teachers will leave with practical strategies that connect modeling to the Science and Engineering Practices (SEPs) and state and national science standards.

Subject Area: Science

Delivery Format: In-Person, Virtual, Hybrid

Target Audience: Pre-Service Teachers, Classroom Teachers, Instructional Coaches, School Administrators, District Administrators

Duration: Workshop (60-90 minutes), Half-Day (3 hours)

Facilitators:

Grade Level: Elementary, Middle, High

Learning Intentions:

• I can explain how developing and using models makes student thinking visible.
• I can identify different types of models (conceptual, physical, mathematical, and diagrammatic) and their role in science instruction.
• I can incorporate modeling strategies that support student-centered learning and sensemaking.
• I can use models to engage students in discourse, peer feedback, and evidence-based reasoning.

Success Criteria:

• I can describe how modeling reveals changes in student understanding over time.
• I can design at least one classroom activity where students create, use, and revise a model based on evidence.
• I can implement scaffolds (sentence frames, checklists, revision cycles) that help all learners engage in modeling.
• I can use student-generated models as formative assessment tools to guide instructional decisions.

Key Topics Covered:

developing and using models, types of models (conceptual, physical, mathematical, diagrammatic) and their purposes, using discourse, peer feedback, and revision to strengthen models, visible thinking routines that capture student ideas, and monitoring conceptual change through evolving models, scaffolds that support equitable participation in modeling

Expected Impact:

Greater engagement with scientific phenomena, clearer expression of ideas through different types of models, deeper conceptual understanding and evidence-based reasoning, practical strategies for designing and facilitating modeling activities, confidence in using models as both instructional and formative assessment tools, consistent use of modeling practices across classrooms to promote discourse, critical thinking, and conceptual change.

Testimonials:

This workshop completely reshaped my perspective on modeling. I used to think of models as end-of-unit projects, but now I see them as evolving tools that capture and reveal student thinking throughout instruction. The strategies we practiced, like revising models with new evidence and using gallery walks for peer feedback, were practical and easy to implement. I left with activities I could use the very next day, and my students are already more engaged and willing to share their ideas. Modeling has become one of my most effective ways to make their thinking visible and guide deeper sensemaking.

Middle School Teacher