Assignment 7 for Joe Fitzpatrick

Education has always aspired to keep up with advances in science and technology.  Nora Sabelli's "Complexity, Technology, Science and Education" (2006, Journal of the Learning Sciences, 15(1), p. 5-9) identifies modeling as the third leg of a stool upon which a student's learning is perched.  In order to be fully understood, a phenomenon must be not only physically observed and explained, but also modeled.  Modeling allows students to have virtual 'hands-on' experience in their education, to get a more visceral feel of up-to-date science and technology.

In this class, we learn about what information technology is available for us to make lesson plans and conduct the everyday business of a classroom.  Sabelli notes that science teachers can take a long-term view of science and advances within it.  These change slowly enough so that science doesn't suffer the "accountability pressures" (p. 6) of other disciplines - we can write F=ma yesterday, today, and forever.  The science of information technology, however, is much more fluid; new apps arise almost daily, and it is up to teachers to use apps to create the magic of learning.  The apps we use today might not be the apps we use tomorrow, though, and even the science classroom evolves over time.  We do, however, teach science that evolves more slowly.

Sabelli notes there are two organizing principles for science education - one is how well a phenomenon is modeled and used in experiments, the other is how complex an overarching system may be.  Students use science every day to aid in decision making - Sabelli gives two examples: global climate change and whether to eat genetically modified foodstuffs. While these organizing principles may appear very different, they are intertwined - something can be modeled as itself alone or as part of a much more complex system.  She asks education researchers to focus their attention on both these principles, to help students make decisions with better scientific understanding.