Air Pressure Curriculum

Introduction

Instructional Approach

The activities in this module are best supported by a classroom culture that fits with the following suggested actions:

• Encourage students to take risks in their thinking and to test their ideas in a social context. No ideas should be shot down. Instead, relevant evidence should be considered.
• Encourage students NOT to accept ideas just because someone else believes them. Students should change their ideas when they find that the evidence is convincing.
• Recognize that students' most challenging questions can invite conceptual change. Use these questions to help students perceive the need for more sophisticated models.
• Emphasize developing understanding and the importance of transferring understanding to new contexts as opposed to right answers.
• Seek opportunities to engage students in scientific inquiry, and try to create learning opportunities that mimic the process of scientific discovery. However, not all learning can be inquiry-based or constructivist. Students also need exposure to the models that scientists have evolved during centuries of scientific inquiry.
• Recognize that students come to class with general principles about how the world operates as a result of their own attempts to make sense of the world. Offer opportunities for them to reflect on their own thinking.
• Encourage testing and revising one's thinking over getting it right. Students who adopt the right model without deeply reasoning it through are likely to revert to their less evolved models as soon as the unit ends.
• Help students to realize that no model explains everything about a particular phenomenon. Each model fits in some ways and doesn't fit in others. Critique models as a regular part of classroom discussions. Some models have more explanatory power than others, but no model captures the whole idea.
• Encourage students to generate "rival models" as often as possible. Rival models are two different ways of explaining the same event. Beginning with two different models can help students view the models more flexibly and keeps them from becoming overly invested in one model. However, acknowledge that students sometimes have a firm explanation and need to grapple with it.
• Expect that your students will move through various understandings and models towards a more scientifically accepted explanation. They may not all accept the scientific model before the end of the unit. Science involves the systematic discard and revision of models towards the goal of developing ones with greater explanatory power. Understanding evolves in a similar manner.