Fraser B.J., K.G. Tobin (eds.), International Handbook of Science Education, 295-314, 1998 Kluwer.
The main goal of science education, according the author, is helping students to learn about the process of scientific modelling. Intermediate Causal Models (ICMs) are in the intersection of mental and computational models. They can change our view of scientific understanding by providing formal models of reasoning processes and representational forms that have played a crucial role in scientific theorising. She describes three approaches of science education , top-down (algebraic systems are posed) , bottom up (laws of physics are induced from experiences with real-life phenomena) and advocates the middle-out approach (motivation, investigation, formalisation, transfer). Nadeel van bottom up is namelijk dat het ontaardt in kant-en-klare experimenten die een te simpel beeld van wetenschappelijk onderzoek geven, en bovendien is het probleem dat: "the real world is a confusing and complicating place."
Werken met ICM in middle-out approach: experimenting with computer models -> creating conceptual models. Two examples: Quest and ThinkingTools Microworlds.
Soort See Kaput, J. J. van de natuurkunde. Een pleidooi voor explorative models. Met een duidelijke mening over het samengaan van ICT-innovatie met didaktiek-innovatie.
Transfer naar reallife-problems blijkt uit vrij kunstmatige opgaven die dichtbij de computermodellen liggen.
Verder wel belang van een soort linken/chaining/groeien van modellen: "the emergent behaviours of our microscopic particle model become the primitive processes of our aggregate flow model; similarly, the emergent properties of our aggregate flow model become the primitive processes of our macroscopic qualitive model. This type of epistemological knowledge dealing with alternative perspectives and their relationships is not addressed in most science curricula."
Verhaal is vrij sterk, voorbeelden zijn vrij mager.
Uitvoerig artikel: White, B. 1993. ThinkerTools: Causal models, conceptual change, and science education (Cognition and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 1-100) ligt in m'n archief.