Building System Capacity with a Modeling-Based Inquiry Program for Elementary Students: A Case Study
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. Data Literacy Skills and Model-Based Learning as Important Components of Early STEM Education
1.2. System-Level Considerations for Establishing Elementary Science Reform
1.3. Model-Based Inquiry Reform through the Usability Cube Framework
2. Methodology
2.1. Context
2.2. Participants
2.3. Data Sources and Analysis
3. Results
3.1. Capability
It really encompasses all the skills and concepts that [the students are] learning, and they get to put it to use…The visual model, it helps them take the concepts and the vocabulary words and everything that we’re learning and putting it to use and seeing how it is actually used in real life…This really amped up [student] knowledge and really I think it checked off all of the markers of the standards we are teaching right now.
Everything was pretty much laid out for me. And then you have everything in the Google drive shared with us…I don’t have to go searching for things and piece it all together…after the summer [PD] you kind of forget everything. And once I went back through the binder and then went back through the lesson plans, it just all comes back and everything is laid out exactly what to do. So that was really helpful.
3.2. School Culture
We were hoping that [these four teachers] were going to be the ones that were going to help this continue once I had to pull out once the grant was over. And it just never took off…we talked with the administration about…pay[ing] these teachers a little bit of a stipend so that they could be ambassadors and they could go to the other school buildings and help train other teachers who were interested, but it just never happened. I think that would have made a big difference too. That could have helped it take off.
3.3. District-Level Policy and Management
I knew the superintendent really well because he was my principal when I first started in the district…And I had a good relationship with the people who were in charge of the curriculum as well…the head of curriculum, he really tried to get all of his principals on board with this.
3.4. Affordances to Students
Teachers…realized, ‘this is really cool, students are helping each other…’ [so] the students were doing some of the teaching as well. They were working together… And pairs would work together, but then you’d hear somebody over in the corner asking a question, this kid would yell across to her, ‘Hey, well do this.’ It was great because the teachers weren’t saying, ‘Shh. Shh. Get quiet.’ They just let them engage.
I really like to see [the students] cooperate with each other, that is something that, it’s definitely hard in this classroom, especially because there’s a lot of kids that have difficulty with that. However because they’re very interested in the StarLogo [Nova]…modeling, the manipulation of it all. They share really well…And there were some students who don’t normally do well with partner work, but they did really well when we did the partner work with the [modeling curriculum].
Modeling helps with their hands-on approach…They see in the instant…as they change something, something happens immediately they have that immediate reinforcement or negative of changing something and it not working anymore…and being able to tinker with it…being able to see immediately what their choices have done, what their impact is [helps students learning].
4. Discussion
4.1. Features that Increased Program Usability
4.2. Features that Decreased Program Usability
4.3. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Appendix A
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School | School Enrollment | Black | White | Hispanic | Two or More Races | Asian | American Indian or Pacific Islander |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
School A | 537 | 42.8% | 27.7% | 18.2% | 9.5% | 1.3% | 0.4% |
School B | 504 | 39.5% | 31.5% | 16.7% | 11.5% | 0.6% | 0.2% |
School C | 500 | 36.8% | 23.4% | 27.4% | 11.4% | 1% | — |
School D | 515 | 48.5% | 17.3% | 22.5% | 10.3% | 0.8% | 0.6% |
School E | 363 | 29.2% | 55.9% | 12.1% | 2.8% | — | — |
School F | 494 | 36.8% | 30.2% | 21.5% | 8.1% | 3.2% | 0.2% |
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Cottone, A.M.; Yoon, S.A.; Coulter, B.; Shim, J.; Carman, S. Building System Capacity with a Modeling-Based Inquiry Program for Elementary Students: A Case Study. Systems 2021, 9, 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/systems9010009
Cottone AM, Yoon SA, Coulter B, Shim J, Carman S. Building System Capacity with a Modeling-Based Inquiry Program for Elementary Students: A Case Study. Systems. 2021; 9(1):9. https://doi.org/10.3390/systems9010009
Chicago/Turabian StyleCottone, Amanda M., Susan A. Yoon, Bob Coulter, Jooeun Shim, and Stacey Carman. 2021. "Building System Capacity with a Modeling-Based Inquiry Program for Elementary Students: A Case Study" Systems 9, no. 1: 9. https://doi.org/10.3390/systems9010009