Scaffolding Hypothesis Formation and Testing During Simulation Coding

Abstract

Training preservice teachers for future STEM teaching is imperative, and yet they are often trained to teach only one of the STEM disciplines in isolation. This chapter proposes an interdisciplinary module that integrates coding and scientific modeling skills. Specifically, it reports the impact of scaffolding preservice teachers' hypothesis formation and testing as they use block-based code to create science simulations and develop models of a water purifying system. This mixed methods study used preservice teachers' hypotheses, written reflections, and interviews as data sources. Results showed that scaffolds appeared to have a positive impact on preservice teachers' model development as they promoted abstraction, better understanding of the experiment, negotiation of meaning between teammates, and efforts to achieve representational accuracy between hypotheses and simulations. Implications for practice, future directions for research, and study limitations are discussed.