UC Berkeley

The Next Generation Science Standards charge U.S. teachers with the task of including patterns, as a crosscutting concept, in their science curricula. This study explores the learning processes and outcomes of a pattern-based curriculum that engages middle school students in the construction of models of particular patterns. These patterns are general behaviors or processes that can be found in a range of phenomena; examples of such patterns include threshold, equilibration, and oscillation. The study investigates 1) the development of students’ pattern models in response to instruction, 2) the productivity of prior knowledge in students' construction of pattern models and 3) the features of instruction that support the process of pattern model construction. It addresses research questions through analysis of data collected during the implementation of a pattern-based curriculum. Findings show that students have a wealth of prior knowledge that can be leveraged by instruction toward their construction of models of threshold, equilibration, and oscillation patterns. These findings contribute to literatures concerned with deep structural and domain-general knowledge, the productive role of prior knowledge in conceptual change, and the design of constructivist instruction.