#850: Characterizing Instructional Scaffolding in Interlocking Models During a Phenomenon-driven Science Unit

Students coordinate multiple representational modalities into coherent explanatory systems when they engage in complex scientific phenomena. This coordination is theorized as interlocking models, where representations mutually constrain and support one another. While many curricula embed modeling supports, less is known about how interlocking can be scaffolded by teachers’ real-time classroom instructional moves. In this study, we analyzed three hours of classroom video to examine a high school physics teacher’s scaffolding moves during the implementation of a phenomenon-driven magnetism unit. Our findings reveal three pedagogical moves that served to support students’ interlocking of empirical, diagrammatic, and verbal models and modalities during whole-class activity. Further, these moves unfolded in an iterative scaffolding sequence. We highlight how the moves generated contradictions, constraints, and gaps for productive interlocking and how they form a preliminary scaffolding framework that can support complex modeling practices in science classrooms.