Modeling Instruction (MI) has been around for close to thirty years, but I unfortunately haven't known about it for that length of time.  My time as an Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow has allowed me to explore this teaching method in much greater depth and I committed to using it when I returned to the classroom in the fall of 2020.  In just the first few years of using MI in my physics classes my students have grown in their understanding of what it means to do science--conduct experiments, search for patterns, develop models to make predictions, and deploy those models in both simulated and real situations.  I have also grown as a teacher in finding ways to get students to collaborate and share what they've learned with their small teams as well as ways to build on each teams' ideas to construct a whole-class consensus on what our labs are telling us about nature.   

If you want to know more about modeling instruction please check out the American Modeling Teachers Association (AMTA) for a Synopsis of Modeling Instruction.