Most biology textbooks teach water in the same order: oxygen and hydrogen, then polar covalent bonds, then hydrogen bonds, then cohesion and adhesion. By the time a model appears, often a labeled diagram of a single water molecule, students have been told about ideas they never had a chance to experience. The model confirms what the lecture said.
What happens if the model comes first? That question is the starting point for WE² Model, our framework for teaching with foundational models. WE² Model puts a model in students' hands at the start of the lesson, so every student begins from the same place: what they notice and what they wonder.
"Developing and Using Models" is the second of the eight science and engineering practices in the Next Generation Science Standards. Julia Gouvea and Cynthia Passmore (2017) offer teachers a useful lens on that practice. They separate "models of" something, which represent what is already known, from "models for" reasoning, which students use to explain, predict, and build new understanding.
When classrooms lean on "models of," the authors argue that models are treated "as representations of what is known rather than as tools to be used in generating new knowledge." Their paper is a conceptual argument drawn from the philosophy of science rather than a classroom trial. Still, it names the shift we wanted to make. The model at the end shows what students were told. The model at the start helps them figure it out.
Over 25 years of developing models, we noticed that a handful kept outperforming the rest. They weren't the most detailed models we made. They were the ones teachers could take in the most directions, year after year.
We call these foundational models: interactive models with a low threshold and a high ceiling that students can use throughout the learning cycle for multiple learning objectives. A low threshold means students can engage before they know the vocabulary. A high ceiling means the same model keeps working as the ideas get harder, from a first lesson on polarity to a unit on membrane transport.
WE² Model organizes learning around three phases, and each one will get its own post in this series.
The first phase is where WE² Model departs most from familiar frameworks. The 5E model opens with Engage, the teacher's move to capture attention. WE² Model opens with Wonder, the learner's move, so the first question of the lesson belongs to a student.
A WE² Model lesson moves through the phases more than once, and wonder keeps coming back. The water lesson shows how that works. Students receive magnetic water molecules from the Water Kit©, in CPK colors (red oxygen, white hydrogen), and a few minutes to play. They notice that the white part of one molecule is drawn to the red part of another, and that two white parts push each other away. Every student in the room has felt partial charge before anyone says the words.
The goal of a WE² Model lesson is for students to finish with better questions: more specific, and often reaching past the day's objective. Same content. Same standards. Different starting point.
The same approach works at different grade levels. In middle school, a first Water Kit© lesson can end with cohesion and the questions students raise about it. In high school, the same molecules come back when the unit reaches solutions and membranes. It works for teachers, too. On day 2 of our Modeling Infection & Immunity course this summer, the Wonder session began with bacterial cell models on the tables and no slides. What those teachers said about protecting wonder is the subject of the next post.
WE² Model was developed by 3D Molecular Designs in collaboration with experienced modeling educators Chris Chou, Jim Lane, Keri Shingleton, and Dan Williams. The framework builds on the collective experience of educators who have participated in Modeling the Molecular World and other 3D Molecular Designs professional-learning programs.
Before you introduce any vocabulary in your next lesson, hand out a model and give students three quiet minutes to notice and write down what they see. Adjust the time and the model to fit your students. What did they notice first? Reply and tell us. We would like to hear what your students saw.
Get the next classroom idea each Tuesday.