Promoting epistemic critique and revision with the Model and Evidence Mapping Environment (SEEDS 2)

The project, Promoting epistemic critique and revision with the Model and Evidence Mapping Environment, is a collaborative, Level II project in the Research on STEM Learning and Learning Environments area and technology enabled learning topic cluster. The project deepens our understanding of how to support late elementary / early middle school students (6th grade) in two interlinked practices that are critical for successful reasoning with evidence about scientific models: 1) describing and justifying criteria including epistemic ideals and processes for critiquing models and responding to critiques; 2) Engaging in construction and critique of models as a socially situated practice, including careful and responsive revision following critique. These practices are crucial both for future scientists and for a scientifically literate population that understands how scientific models and arguments are grounded in these practices so that they can vet the multitude of scientific claims they encounter daily in the media. To support these practices, the project extends our previous successful NSF-funded project Scaffolding Explanations and Epistemic Development for Systems (SEEDS; DRL# 1761019), which designed and investigated an instructional approach with integrated software that scaffolded learners as they developed, critiqued, and refined scientific models using evidence. This project also will incorporate into a previously developed software tool (see website) that helps students connect evidence directly to models they construct. The current project extends this prior work by focusing on improving students’ ability to engage in the dialectic processes of constructing and critiquing scientific models. To support these processes, we use scaffolds that help students develop and use shared criteria for what makes a good scientific model and that support students in justifying their modeling and model critique activities. Our analyses will illuminate how each of the scaffolds supports learners in developing robust scientific modeling practices, so other educators and designers can implement similar approaches.