ABSTRACT
Educational research has examined how students elaborate models in the science classroom (Janvier & Lapointe, 1998; Tiberghien, 1994), as well as the role and function of teachers’ tutoringduringstudents’ modelingactivities (Franceschelli & Weil-Barais, 1998; Janvier & Lapointe, 1998; Larcher & Chomat, 1998). However, relatively little research has been carried out on the processes by which teachers come to understand how students model, or on how teachers can be helped to learn how students model, as part of their training. These questions form an essential initial approach but remain separate from the question involvingto what extent teachers actually integrate what they have learned duringtheir traininginto their professional practice. In a research program that aims to contribute to teaching teachers how students model, such a question should be addressed subsequently in order to evaluate if and how teachers put the information they gain on students’ modelinginto practice. The assumption here is that teaching teachers about how students model is successful if the teacher-learners can fruitfully bring to bear this new knowledge on their practice.
