Science Modeling Talks

In this episode, we hear from Larry Dukerich, one of the key people who developed modeling resources for chemistry instruction. He talks about how modeling changed the way he taught and expands on the three main ways that modeling differs from a traditional lecture-style classroom.

Larry Dukerich received his B.S. in Chemistry from Michigan State University and his Masters of Natural Science from Arizona State University. He taught high school chemistry and physics, including regular, honors and AP courses, in Michigan and Arizona for 34 years. He was a Woodrow Wilson Dreyfus Fellow in Chemistry in 1986 and a Presidential Awardee for Excellence in Science Teaching in 2000. Since 1995, he has conducted numerous summer workshops for physics and chemistry teachers as part of the Modeling Instruction Program at ASU, and later in Pennsylvania, N Carolina, Tennessee, New York City, Missouri, California and Colorado. He has also made presentations about and conducted workshops on Modeling Instruction at NSTA, ChemEd and BCCE conferences. He is one of the lead contributors to the curricular materials used in Modeling Instruction in chemistry.

[11:00]

If you go to a workshop, you’re going to be exposed to a reform pedagogy, which is going to require you to change the way you manage your classroom. If you are looking for a way to improve your instruction then this is going to be something for you.

[16:10]

When you go to a workshop, teachers play the role of student as they run through the experiments, collecting data, analyzing it, having to interpret it, and explain what’s going on. And same thing with worksheets, tests and quizzes, that sort of thing. And they get the feeling for how modeling instruction differs from their traditional classroom practice.

[32:33]

It’s a culture, not a cult. I have just found, once I started teaching with modeling that I found the experience in the classroom much more satisfying. My students found the course enjoyable and wanted to take more science. Places that have been implementing modeling have seen science enrollment grow, an increase in the number of advanced courses that students take. It’s something that I think people can be excited about.

[24:59] -Assessment of Basic Chemistry Concepts or “ABCC”

AMTA members can download it (as well as the Excel item-analysis workbook) at the AMTA website, modelinginstruction.org , in the members-only section.

Non-members can email Larry Dukerich: ldukerich@mac.com

[26:33] – paper that Larry wrote for J. Chem Ed in 2015:

https://doi.org/10.1021/ed500909w

(Users must log in to read the whole paper. The abstract is available without logging in)

Larry Dukerich – transcription