Chemical Study Of High School Students Using Software Modeling Of Thinking

Modeling as a constructive learning way can engage students inunderstanding some phenomenon and expressing their representation tothem by exploring the situation through some given objects and tools, soit can enhance students'deep understanding and flexible application ofknowledge. Middle school students face a number of difficulties withmodels for science learning including limited experience in creating andusing models and a lack of advanced mathematical skills. Computerenvironments allow the creation of dynamic and even more complexmodels. One way of bringing the design of models within reach is throughthe use of scaffolds. Scaffolds are intentional assistance provided tolearners from a variety of sources, allowing them to complete tasks thatwould otherwise be out of reach.This study concerns middle school students'models and modelingprocesses associated with a modeling tool called Model-It. The study alsouse the Hand held technology as the scaffolds of the students'modeling.Using "think aloud" technique, computer screen recording and videorecording, we captured their computer screen modeling activities andthinking processes.The outcome of this study could be summarized as follows: (1)Themodeling process follow three parts "plan, build, test", including fourmodeling activities: creating objects, creating variables, creatingrelationships, test model, incarnating five modeling practices: plan,analyzing, synthesizing, evaluating and monitoring; (2) The middleschool students'modeling need scaffolds to support, such as toolscaffolding, peer scaffolding and teacher scaffolding; (3) The time ofeach part has not distinctness between the prepotency and the bad, but the prepotency'modeling processes lean to follow the linear sequence builtin the modeling program without moving back-and-forth while the bad'modeling processes lean to follow the sawtooth sequence for theback-and-forth; (4) The Hand held technology has a great deal of effect inimproving the student'meta-cognition, but the study does not find theeffect of the students'creating models.Based on the study, I put forward some suggestion of designingmodeling software in China: (1) make sure which modeling level thesoftware can support; (2) support some view tools; (3) support someessential scaffolds.