Episodes

  • Episode 76 – Caroline Savio-Ramos “AMTA’s New XO”

    Episode 76 – Caroline Savio-Ramos “AMTA’s New XO”
    Jan 1 2026
    In this episode, Mark talks with Caroline Savio-Ramos, the new executive officer of the AMTA. They discuss her professional journey and introduction to modeling instruction. They talk about current projects she has been working on in her first month as executive officer and about direction for AMTA. Guest Caroline Savio-Ramos She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Technology from Arizona State University, where she conducted research on technology-enhanced physics learning, published peer-reviewed work, and taught courses in Human–Computer Interaction and Educational Technology. She also earned an M.S. in Educational Technology from Ramapo College, an M.A. in Education (Teaching Physics) from New York University, a B.S. in Computer Science from Western Governors, and a B.A. in Physics and Spanish from Rutgers University. In addition to her academic background, she brings industry experience from Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Intel, where she led UX research and designed digital learning solutions. A fluent speaker of Spanish and Portuguese, she is committed to fostering curiosity, problem solving, and lifelong engagement with STEM. BluSky Profile Highlights [23:28] Caroline Savio-Ramos "I encourage people to come to the town halls, come to webinars because the way I wanted to approach this is have an open conversation with folks. Like, what do you want to see? What can we do for you? What are some things that you would like AMTA to offer that we possibly don't?" Resources Download Transcript Ep 76 Transcript
    Show More Show Less
    32 mins
  • Episode 75 – Recast – Cynthia Passmore – “Models Are the Functional Unit of Scientific Thought”

    Episode 75 – Recast – Cynthia Passmore – “Models Are the Functional Unit of Scientific Thought”
    Dec 1 2025
    In this episode, Mark talks with Cynthia Passmore, who is a professor of science education at the University of California, Davis. They talk about the differences between the approach to modeling developed at ASU and UC Davis, which seem to be more and more similar as time goes by. They talk about how all of our understanding in scientific study is based on models, even if we do not specifically hold those up as "models" per se. We use mental models to explain the world around us and to better understand how and why certain interactions happen the way they do. They talk about modeling instruction and the Next Generation Science Standards and how modeling really gets students to do the thinking as scientists and make the connections between what we see and the explanations for what we see. They talk about Cynthia's new book, even get to talk about some of Cynthia's recent research on effective teaching using modeling methods in the high school biology classroom. Guest Cynthia Passmore Cynthia Passmore is currently a Professor specializing in science education in the University of California, Davis School of Education. She did her doctoral work at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and prior to that she was a high school science teacher. Her research focuses on the role of models and modeling in student learning, curriculum design and teacher professional development. She investigates model-based reasoning in a range of contexts and is particularly interested in understanding how the design of learning environments interacts with students’ reasoning practices. She has been the principal investigator of several large grants and is the lead on a collaborative curriculum design project that has created a full-year high school biology course. A key practitioner publication is the edited volume: Helping Students Make Sense of the World Using Next Generation Science and Engineering Practices from NSTA Press. Highlights [2:44] Cynthia "I think the inclusion of modeling as a practice in the next generation Science standards has also brought a lot more people to the work of modeling than used to be the case." [3:25] Cynthia "Models are the functional unit of scientific thought." [7:51] Cynthia "The depiction is important. I'm not trying to say it's not, but if all we're doing is asking kids to reproduce representations and depictions of things, then we're losing the modeling practice, in my view." Resources Download Transcript Ep 75 Transcript Links Modeling Based Biology - Living Earth
    Show More Show Less
    32 mins
  • Episode 74 - Tom Pfeiffer - 40 years veteran teacher and Modeling Workshop Leader

    Episode 74 - Tom Pfeiffer - 40 years veteran teacher and Modeling Workshop Leader
    Nov 1 2025
    This episode starts out with Tom's advice to teachers who are just getting started with modeling instruction. He and Mark discuss the differences in teaching physics and chemistry using modeling methods. They also discuss the changes Tom noticed when switching from traditional to modeling methods, as well as key takeaways from modeling workshops. Guest

    Tom Pfeiffer

    Tom Pfeiffer studied biology and chemistry in college. In graduate school, he chose to switch directions and become a teacher. In his teaching career, Tom taught Physics, Chemistry, 10th-grade Biology, Advanced Biology and Physical Science. When he began to learn about modeling methods, he says it greatly improved student engagement in learning. He is now retired after teaching for 40 years. Facebook | Instagram Highlights [17:40] Tom Pfeiffer "when I think of my students when I was modeling, they were much more engaged and seemed to enjoy the class more." [19:55] Mark Royce "When they walk away from my class, regardless of the content they carry with them, they are learning how to learn, and that will always go with them in their life ahead." Resources Download Transcript Ep 74 Transcript
    Show More Show Less
    36 mins
  • Episode 73 - Matt Oney - "Modeling in the University, The State of Modeling and Teacher P.D."

    Episode 73 - Matt Oney - "Modeling in the University, The State of Modeling and Teacher P.D."
    Oct 1 2025
    Mark talks with Matt Oney about his introduction to modeling instruction and how he uses modeling methodology in the university setting. They talk about the importance of fostering, as opposed to squashing, the curiosity that all children have. Modeling instruction is designed to train students to use their curiosity to pursue answers, and students are engaged in that learning. Additionally, they discuss ways that teachers may be inadvertently killing students' curiosity. They talk about the importance of modeling the student-centered approach in the professional development that we offer to teachers because we want their classrooms to be student-centered. Guest

    Matt Oney

    Matt Oney is the Associate Director for Integrated Secondary Science at Michigan State University in the Center for Integrated Studies in General Sciences. His primary focus is on preparing future science educators. In addition, he is the College of Natural Science coordinator for the Certification in College Teaching Program. Matt earned master’s degrees in plant biology and education from MSU. Prior to joining MSU as a faculty member, Matt was a high school chemistry and physics teacher in the Upper Peninsula. Highlights [2:33] Matt Oney: "what the myth busters are currently doing of just like taking these general curiosities that they have about the world and identifying ways that they can answer those curiosities. I was like, that's what I want my students to do. But I had no idea how to do that related to physics." [23:42] Matt Oney: "I would argue that all subject matters should be inquiry based and that our students should be learning through their own curiosities," [25:13] Matt Oney: "Learning is not necessarily, fun. It's challenging, but it's engaging. And we have such a huge responsibility to make sure that we are not killing the curiosity of our students." Resources Download Transcript Ep 73 Transcript
    Show More Show Less
    39 mins
  • Episode 72 – Lynn Jorgensen – Teacher of the year, Gender Equity, Adapting to the changing education landscape

    Episode 72 – Lynn Jorgensen – Teacher of the year, Gender Equity, Adapting to the changing education landscape
    Sep 1 2025
    Mark talks with Lynn about her introduction to modeling instruction right at the beginning of her teaching career and how modeling works so well with the specific AP physics areas of focus. Lynn reminds us that when we are the only teachers of a certain STEM subject at our school, it is incredibly important to find community beyond the walls of our school. They talk about gender equity in our science classrooms. As always, Mark asks his guest to share her best modeling tips for teachers. Finally, they talk about adapting to the annual requests for doing some new thing in all classrooms. Guest

    Lynn Jorgensen

    After graduating from BYU with a degree in Physics Teaching, Lynn Jorgensen took a few years off to raise her family. She then began her teaching career in 2015 at Gilbert High School. As a singleton teacher finding a community of support and relevant PD became her primary focus. These searches led Lynn to the Arizona section of AAPT and STEMteachersPHX. Serving as vice president for AzAAPT for a number of years. She started working with Arizona State University’s modeling instruction program as she earned her Masters of Natural Science (physics) degree. Working with the Modeling community lead her to serve on the executive board of AMTA. She has also served on the K-12 task force with AAPT, as well as a teacher fellow on the InterAmerican Teacher Education Network. In every opportunity Lynn has looked for ways to strengthen her teaching skills and to try to reach as many students as she can each year. Highlights [4:17] Lynn Orgensen "you might know physics, but modeling helps you understand how to actually get your information across to your students." [8:44] Lynn Orgensen "modeling really helps fill that gap with AP to really help students understand how things are connected and that there's these relationships. Not just an equation, but we can focus on the graphs. There's multiple forms of representation, which is all of the kind of things AP loves to hear and to see" [18:27] Lynn Orgensen "there is absolutely something to be said for having a community of like-minded people wanting to just help each other be better." Resources Download Transcript Ep 72 Transcript
    Show More Show Less
    35 mins
  • Episode 71 – Chance Hoellwarth – Hosting Modeling Workshops at Cal Poly

    Episode 71 – Chance Hoellwarth – Hosting Modeling Workshops at Cal Poly
    Aug 1 2025
    Mark and Chance talk about ways to make workshops more accessible to teachers, given the limited amount of time we all have in the summertime. They talk about CESAME at Cal Poly, which works to recruit more science and math teachers for K12 education. They talk about how AI may impact modeling classrooms, including some ideas he has about how to use the power of AI to get to the physics principles, even in high school, that are usually pushed until students have 2-3 years of college math. Guest

    Chance Hoellwarth

    Chance Hoellwarth, a professor of physics at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly), serves as the director of Cal Poly’s Center for Engineering, Science, and Mathematics Education. This center’s primary focus is on recruiting STEM teachers and providing support to inservice K-12 science teachers. One of their initiatives is organizing Modeling Workshops in biology, chemistry, and physics every summer. Highlights [5:24] Chance Hoellwarth "It's so much easier to edit than to pull from scratch." [26:23] Chance Hoellwarth, on letting AI do some of the complicated data analysis to let students "see" the physics: "it's about the physics. How do we get to the physics more and not all the calculations we need to do to do the physics kind of thing." Resources Download Transcript Ep 71 Transcript Links CESAME Website
    Show More Show Less
    35 mins
  • Episode 70 - Dr. Emma Mitchell - "How Modeling Works in My Classroom"

    Episode 70 - Dr. Emma Mitchell - "How Modeling Works in My Classroom"
    Jul 1 2025
    This month, Mark talks with Emma Mitchell, the chair of the science department at the Ethel Walker School in Connecticut. They talk about her background working in labs, often as the only female. They talk about Emma's experience teaching at an all-girls' school, and then about how she came across modeling instruction when trying to figure out how to teach physics in a pandemic. She completely changed how she teaches by bringing modeling to her ninth graders and to her advanced physics students. They talk about the way students become the ones doing the heavy lifting during class, as opposed to sitting back and receiving the information through lecture. They talk about Peter Liljedahl's book, Building Thinking Classrooms, and how similar the author's ideas for math instruction are to the ideas of modeling. They spend time talking about the benefits of vertical whiteboarding for students' thinking. Emma finishes with her best tips for starting a new school year well. Guest

    Dr. Emma Mitchell

    Emma Mitchell teaches introductory- and advanced-level physics and is the Science Department Chair at The Ethel Walker School, an independent boarding and day school for girls in Simsbury, Connecticut. She holds a BA in Physics from Vassar College and a Ph.D. in Engineering Physics from University of Virginia. Emma participated in her first workshop in Modeling Instruction in 2020 and has been involved in the AMTA ever since. She is currently the Vice President of the AMTA Executive Board. She is excited about the transformative change that Modeling has brought to her classroom and loves any opportunity to discuss pedagogy with other science teachers. X | Bluesky Highlights [4:18] Emma Mitchell "And so introducing modeling just brought this joy and this, it just made me love teaching even more. And that was scarce in 2020. So I felt really appreciative that I found this new way of teaching at a time when teaching was so hard because it made it easier actually." [5:26] Emma Mitchell "Science is built off of iterative mistakes, right? And science is built off of collaboration." [20:54] Emma Mitchell "So students have a tendency if you go straight from lab to equation, at least for my ninth graders, they would think about it really algorithmically. And so they would just sort of revert to this kind of plug-and-chug way of solving problems. And by making them go through the step with the diagrams, it's actually harder in a lot of ways because they have to wrap their minds around what's really going on. And they have to apply, new situations and applying that to the graphs and that to these diagrams, is asking them to do a lot more thinking." Resources Download Transcript Ep 70 Transcript Links [27:02] Building Thinking Classrooms
    Show More Show Less
    46 mins
  • Episode 69 – ReCast – Ray Howanski – “AMTA Past, Present and Future”

    Episode 69 – ReCast – Ray Howanski – “AMTA Past, Present and Future”
    Jun 1 2025
    In this episode, Mark talks with Ray Howanski, CEO of the AMTA. They talk about the origins of AMTA, the big ideas behind modeling instruction, and how the modeling community has changed over time. They talk about the plans that are ahead for AMTA, including a new website and easier ways to connect teachers to one another. They finish with talking about efforts to include data science in the modeling framework and to keep science involved in the larger discussion of data science in education. Guest

    Ray Howanski

    Ray Howanski worked for Ridley School District teaching Chemistry and Biology for 22 years and then as a Curriculum Director for the next 13 years. He worked with their science department to grow modeling instructional practices during which time they inverted the science sequence to offer a Physics - Chemistry - Biology progression. Ray is currently serving as the executive officer for AMTA. Highlights [10:35] Ray Howanski "I think that's really what modeling does. It gives teachers that really foundational piece of resources that they can then go and blossom in each of their teaching environments." [41:52] Ray Howanski "now I can improve my understanding and accept information like evidence-based thinking and the ability to change your mind. Just those things. Learning how to have a face-to-face conversation. And learn from each other. These are things I think that whether you're a science person or not, I think we would all recognize that these are things we want people in our society to be able to do." Resources Download Transcript Ep 69 Transcript Links Get Involved! amtaexec@modelinginstruction.org
    Show More Show Less
    47 mins