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We developed the Systems Thinking (ST) and Computational Thinking (CT) Identification Tool (ID Tool) to identify student involvement in ST and CT as they construct and revise computational models. Our ID Tool builds off the ST and CT Through Modeling Framework, emphasizing the synergistic relationship between ST and CT and demonstrating how both can be supported through computational modeling. This paper describes the process of designing and validating the ID Tool with special emphasis on the observable indicators of testing and debugging computational models. We collected 75 hours of students’ interactions with a computational modeling tool and analyzed them using the ID Tool to characterize students’ use of ST and CT when involved in modeling. The results suggest that the ID Tool has the potential to allow researchers and practitioners to identify student involvement in various aspects of ST and CT as they construct and revise computational models. 

This study explores how to support teachers in developing and implementing effective pedagogical strategies to promote students in making sense of phenomena through computational modeling in remote contexts. Qualitative analyses of eight teachers’ interviews were conducted to characterize their pedagogical strategies to achieve three-dimensional learning. Findings indicate that typical teacher strategies include the teacher and students co-constructing a model and using whole class or group discussions to support students’ modeling practices. 

Abstract: This study investigates strategies teachers use to support mental imagery during modelbased science class discussions. A microanalysis of videos of classroom discussions was conducted in order to (1) identify and describe teaching strategies for supporting imagery; and (2) identify evidence that the students were engaging in the use of imagery as they constructed models and reasoned about competing models. This study starts from prior work on experts’ use of imagery, as well as from prior analyses of imagistic characteristics of concrete exemplars used successfully in a curriculum. Sixteen teacher support strategies for imagery are identified, along with thirteen student imagery process indicators. As the list of descriptors stabilizes, we are also identifying larger categories of descriptors—that is, structured categories of imagistic practices and categories of support. We present examples from a case study based on a transcript of a middle school discussion that served as one of the sources for our new organized set of imagery descriptors.