This Modeling Instruction workshop is an award-winning professional development experience for preservice or in-service or high school science teachers who want to create student-centered, active-inquiry classrooms. It will include a week of physics (mechanics) and a week of chemistry (with a focus on pedagogy, not necessarily content).

Modeling Instruction is a complex, transformative pedagogy developed at Arizona State University and championed by the American Modeling Teachers Association (AMTA). It expresses an emphasis on making and using conceptual models of physical and chemical phenomena as central to learning and doing science. Modeling Instruction was designated in 2000 by the U.S. Department of Education as one of the seven best K-12 educational technology programs out of 134 programs evaluated.

Workshop leaders will take participants through several “modeling cycles” in hands-on/minds-on experiences dealing with various physics and chemistry topics. Working closely with colleagues, participants will practice teaching students to design experiments, reason from data and to develop, modify, and deploy scientific models.

Who can take it: Preservice or in-service high school science teachers

Dates: Monday - Friday, July 8-19, 2019, 8:00am-3:30pm

***No Class Saturday, July 13 and Sunday, July 14

Location: Trinity Episcopal School's Science Discovery Center Room S-1

Cost: $200 + $13.80 Eventbrite Fee

Instructors:

Mary Battershell Whalen has been teaching physics for over 25 years. After earning her B.S. in Physics & Acoustics at Penn State, Mary started her teaching career with Teach For America in Arkansas. She later earned her M.Ed. in Math, Science, and Technology Education from the Ohio State University and is currently teaching Physics and AP Physics at Olentanghy High School near Columbus, Ohio. Outside of the classroom, Mary has led Modeling Instruction workshops for other educators, in an AP Physics reader, and is active in the American Association of Physics Teachers

Sarah Palmer has been teaching for 13 years. Upon graduation from the Ohio State University with a B.S in Microbiology, she realized the life of a research scientist was not for her. While working with students during month-long field ecology summer trips, she decided to pursue a career in education and earned an M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction from Ashland University. Currently teaching Honors and AP Chemistry at Olentangy High School, Sarah is also interested in standards-based grading, Modeling Instruction, and understanding more about how students learn to think.

Laura Swiatek is in her eighth year of teaching. She earned her B.A. in Neuroscience from Vassar College and her M.Ed. in Adolescent-to-Young Adult Integrated Science Instruction from Ohio University. Currently, she teaches IB Chemistry Higher Level, Chemistry 2, and Honors Chemistry at Trinity Episcopal School outside Richmond, VA. She has also taught various levels of Biology and Environmental Science. She and Sarah have published an article on how Modeling Instruction facilitated their collaboration.

Suggested Hotel Accomodations: