Model-Based Inquiry in Computer-Supported Learning Environments

Abstract

This chapter focuses on model-based inquiry in computer-supported environments, especially through the use of the Go-Lab platform (www.golabz.eu). Go-Lab is an online learning platform that offers students the opportunity to engage in inquiry-based science learning, in a structured and supportive manner, by providing environments for learning (i.e., Inquiry Learning Spaces), where virtual or remote laboratories and software scaffolds (e.g., tools for generating hypotheses and designing experiments) that support inquiry learning processes have been integrated. The purpose of this chapter is to unravel how the Go-Lab platform, especially some of its virtual laboratories, can be used for model-based learning. In so doing, we discuss core requirements for model-based inquiry in expressing, testing, and revising models. Further, we present three examples of Go-Lab virtual laboratories, with modeling and simulation affordances, to explain how they could be used by educators as means for enacting model-based inquiry.