What do prospective science teachers understand about the importance of models and modeling in science?
and (b) How do their understandings change as a result of their participation in a modeling experience in an undergraduate science teaching methods course? Context and Methods Context The authors designed an instructional module to be taught during part of an advanced science teaching methods course for secondary science teachers. The module focused on scientists’ use of models using as the centerpiece the dynamic systems modeling software Model-It, developed at the University of Michigan’s Center for Highly Interactive Computing in Education – (HI-CE, http://www.hi-ce.org). There is a trial version of this software downloadable from the Web (http://goknow.com/modelit.htm). The authors planned to engage the prospective secondary science teachers in a series of modeling-related activities. The instructional experiences included students’ investigating real-world phenomena, and then designing, building, and testing computer models, related to the real-world investigations. The main purpo
