This book is the culmination of over twenty years of work toward a pedagogicaltheory that promotes experiential learning of modelladen theory and inquiry inscie... » 

This book is the culmination of over twenty years of work toward a pedagogicaltheory that promotes experiential learning of modelladen theory and inquiry inscience. It is primarily intended for researchers and graduate students inscience education and it may serve as a major reference for inservice andpreservice science teachers. The book focuses as much on course content as oninstruction and learning methodology and presents practical aspects that haverepeatedly demonstrated their value in fostering meaningful and equitablelearning of physics and other science courses at the secondary school andcollege levels. The author shows how a scientific theory that is the object ofa given science course can be organized around a limited set of basic models.Special tools are introduced including modeling schemata for students tomeaningfully construct models and required conceptions and for teachers toefficiently plan instruction and assess and regulate student learning andteaching practice. A scientific model is conceived to represent a particularpattern in the structure or behavior of physical realities and to explore andreify the pattern in specific ways. The author further shows how to engagestudents in modeling activities through structured learning cycles. «