Anchoring events • Modeling Presentations
These are presentations in which the ideas of anchoring events and modeling are featured. We’ve broken the presentations down into more view-able segments. In each, there are up-to-date examples of both anchoring events—from kindergarten to AP chemistry—and modeling from all grade levels. The content of the presentations adds to what you’ll find in written documents and other videos on this site. And again, we thank all our teacher partners for furnishing these examples for the AST community.
What all good anchoring events have in common is that they motivate students to try and explain what is going on. These explanations are elaborated and evidence-based accounts—ones that require young learners to draw upon a wide range of science concepts and to engage in multiple investigations in order to construct narratives and representations for the target phenomenon. The process of scientific modeling is a companion disciplinary practice to explanation. Modeling has many benefits for learning, but its most powerful feature is that it makes student thinking more visible, and in different ways than the written or spoken word.
What all good anchoring events have in common is that they motivate students to try and explain what is going on. These explanations are elaborated and evidence-based accounts—ones that require young learners to draw upon a wide range of science concepts and to engage in multiple investigations in order to construct narratives and representations for the target phenomenon. The process of scientific modeling is a companion disciplinary practice to explanation. Modeling has many benefits for learning, but its most powerful feature is that it makes student thinking more visible, and in different ways than the written or spoken word.
