The Impact of Modeling Instruction within the Inverted Curriculum on Student Achievement in Science

Achievement in science is a national concern, and graduating students who are college and career ready is a national imperative. In this study, we examine student achievement on the ACT science test as a high school transitioned from teaching biology, chemistry and physics with a teacher-centric pedagogy (the traditional instructional context) to the inverted curriculum (teaching physics, chemistry, then biology) to using the modeling instruction pedagogy (student-centric, inquiry-based) within the inverted curriculum. Data for students graduating over an eight-year period under these three instructional contexts were analyzed to determine if there were potential relationships between student achievement and the instructional context. This is an in situ study of the results of making an intentional change in the instructional context used to teach science. On average, ACT science scores and the percentage of students graduating college ready were higher for students learning in the two non-traditional instructional contexts.