Share Paper: The Use of Student Mentors in an Eco-simulation for Whole Class Instruction

  1. Angie Dowling, West Virginia University, United States
  2. Terence Ahern, West Virginia University, United States
Wednesday, March 7 5:15 PM-6:45 PM Capitol D

Abstract: A basic computer model of a forest ecosystem was constructed using StarLogo software. During whole class instruction it was noticed that the students were often more focused on the software than the science literacy skills needed to examine the workings of the ecosystem. The difficulty is on the one hand to maintain lesson focus while on the other dealing with the inherent difficulties to this type of software for instruction. One way to accomplish a balance between these needs would be to train student-to-student mentors who would have enough prior knowledge of the software in order for them to be ...