Factors Affecting Implementation of Model-Based Reasoning in High School Biology

• In Event: 32.029 - Supporting Science as a Modeling Practice in the Classroom Through the Lens of Next Generation Science Standards

Abstract

Objectives. In this study, we followed eight teachers and their students as they implemented a yearlong model-based curriculum. Throughout the year, we observed instructional tensions teachers faced in trying to consistently actualize model-based reasoning (MBR). Thus, the objective of this paper is to characterize what affected implementation of MBR, and how those factors influenced the ways models and modeling were portrayed.
Theoretical Framework. When students are given a model, they may not understand its purpose or the reasoning behind its construction. In contrast, when students are given opportunities to generate models, they can engage in authentic scientific practice and develop deep biological understanding (Authors, 2014). We describe these possible enactments of models and modeling, respectively, as a pedagogical tool and a pedagogical approach. When models are viewed as pedagogical tools, they become vehicles for delivering declarative knowledge to students. However, when MBR is perceived as a pedagogical approach, students generate models to reason about and explain phenomena. These instructional differences are important if teachers are expected to foster in students both content knowledge and epistemic understandings of science (National Research Council, 2012).
Methods and Data. We observed eight high school biology teachers throughout the academic year. Additionally, teachers were interviewed, wrote weekly reflections, and met monthly with the researchers. They primarily taught 9th and 10th grade students in four high schools in three districts. Data were analyzed using both NVivo and Studiocode software. Coding focused on how models and modeling were described, both in interviews and in the classroom; what aspects of modeling teachers chose to focus on during enactment; and the barriers to implementation, either observed by us or described by the teachers. Patterns related to these themes were organized chronologically into case-level matrices (Miles & Huberman, 2013) that illustrate the ways MBR was enacted in each teachers’ classroom throughout the school year.
Results. Our preliminary findings indicate that teachers viewed their instruction, to varying degrees, as aligned with a pedagogical approach to MBR that supported student agency to develop and reason with models. However, they noted and we observed, tensions during enactment, where teachers shifted from using MBR as pedagogical approach towards using models as pedagogical tools. These breakdowns were related to non-mutually exclusive factors such as concerns related to instructional efficiency, teachers’ beliefs regarding student capacity to engage in modeling, and lack of confidence regarding instructional moves. The location of the tension points varied by model and by teacher, potentially pointing to the importance of both teacher content knowledge and their understanding of the purposes behind models and modeling as a consistent frame for science in the classroom. In the full paper, we will expand on these tension points, and further describe the factors affecting implementation of MBR.
Scholarly significance. This paper can serve to provide an understanding of what affects the degree to which teachers perceive modeling as a pedagogical approach as opposed to a tool to represent content. Furthermore, we explore leverage points for designing professional development.

Authors

• Candice Guy-Gaytán, University of California - Davis

• Julia Svoboda Gouvea, Tufts University

• Cynthia M. Passmore, University of California - Davis