Workshop Leaders: Donghong Sun and Rachel Ward.
Come learn a fantastic approach known as Modeling Instruction™ and how it can help improve and deepen your students’ understanding of crucial chemistry concepts. This workshop will immerse you in Modeling Instruction™ so that you can develop the skills necessary to implement this student-centered, research-informed, standards-based curricular approach with your students. As a participant, you will spend time observing instruction from the point of view of a student (“student-mode”), as this is a key component in reinforcing the intertwined content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. You will engage in thought-provoking, pertinent experiments that you can utilize in your own classroom. Periodically, we will switch to “teacher-mode”, to uncover and examine through readings and discussion the pedagogical rationale for all aspects of Modeling Instruction™. We’ll also discuss strategies for accommodating various student populations, class schedules, testing requirements, and laboratory resources.
The workshop will develop and focus on fundamental chemistry models (particulate structure of matter, energy and kinetic molecular theory, stoichiometry, and energy and chemical change) while utilizing a process-oriented inquiry approach; data collection, pictorial representations, graphical representations, algebraic representations, and discussion that proves to be extremely effective in helping students of all ability levels develop independence and problem-solving skills.