Episode 84 – Levi Torrison – Seasoned Workshop Leader – Why Modeling is so Important

In this episode, Mark talks with Levi Torrison about his background in modeling instruction, the years he has spent facilitating modeling workshops, and the work he has been a part of building out the second semester of modeling chemistry materials. Levi talks about the methods of modeling instruction as a way to get students thinking like scientists, asking questions for themselves, and learning how to discover the answers through investigation. Guest Levi Torrison Levi graduated with his phd in chemistry from ASU in 2003. He has been teaching at Estrella Mountain Community College for 20 years. He took his first modeling workshop with Russ Shaffer in the summer of 2008 and began leading workshops the following summer of 2009. I have taught chemistry I and II workshops as well as the thermodynamics course. This summer I finished my 22 workshop in Utah.   Highlights [28:58] Levi: "most science teachers will tell you that they would rather teach critical thinking than content." [29:11] Levi: "most teachers will tell you, "Man, I really wish these students would learn how to think." And this is the way to do that, is having them sit down with data, having them perform the experiment and collect the data and do the graphing and do all the thinking." [31:02] Levi: "teaching this way with a modeling curriculum, you have instantaneous assessment. When you have students that build a whiteboard together as a group and ask each other questions and sit there and go through, you can immediately tell what they actually understand for real." Resources Download Transcript Ep 84 Transcript