Resource Room

This folder has readings from Colleen Megowan, Dwain Desbain and a powerpoint by Matt Greenwolfe that was used as part of his presentation to the AMTA convention in July 2008.

For a description of practice-the-model problems, see the excerpts from Colleen Megowan's dissertation, especially excerpt 6 - small group dynamics and excerpt 7 - whole class discussion. The excerpt from Dwain Desbain's dissertation describes his modeling discourse management method (MDM), which is designed to promote more productive discourse in the modeling classroom. Colleen's research indicates that the use of practice-the-model problems is the most important factor for improving discourse. Although Dwain uses practice-the-model problems almost exclusively in his courses, his dissertation is light on this crucial aspect.

Matt Greenwolfe's powerpoint briefly describes his adaptions of MDM for the high school classroom, including the use of model summary boards, concept maps that show how models build a theory, the use of matched-modeling-problems (a type of practice-the-model problem), development of a scaffold to help students adjust to open-ended investigation, the cyclical use and removal of the scaffold, and the strategy of splitting the worksheets.