Practices and challenges in an undergraduate teachers’ course: Modeling-based learning and peer assessment in science

Abstract

The processes of constructing and interpreting models comprise effective teaching practices as a means to improve students’ knowledge about science concepts and scientific modeling skills. The interest in getting students to work with models and modeling in science is grounded in the premise that models act as a link between theory and phenomena and/or systems. In this study, we firstly sought to examine how undergraduate-teacher students model the phenomenon of moon phases, relying on observations and data they collected through modeling-based learning in an inquiry-based learning environment. Second, we aimed to examine how the enactment of the peerassessor and peer-assessee roles, and the type of feedback, are associated with students’ improvements on their own constructed models, after enacting reciprocal peer assessment. The participants were 27 undergraduate teacher students of primary education (hereafter called students). Data were collected through (a) students’ initial models, (b) peer-feedback reports, and (c) students’ revised models. A mixed-methods approach was used for analyzing the data. The results revealed that the participants in this study constructed models with sufficient representational power about the phenomenon of moon phases. Additionally, after the enactment of the peer-assessment activity, few students proceeded with revising their model, relying on specific criteria. Implications for practice and policy are presented with respect to challenges that seemed to come into play during the implementation of peer assessment in modeling-based learning, and suggested ways to address them.