Learning With Models

Learning with models constitutes a class of experience-based learning processes that uses a constructed model of the world (or a world of thought) to support a learning experience. A model is a representation of something in the world—a kind of abstraction that may range from a set of assumptions to the basis for a complex and realistic simulation. The learning experience is abstract because the model is not the world but an idealized, focused, or reduced version of an understanding about something in the world, such as a representation of expert understanding or a process. The reasons for using models vary from safe or risk-free initial experiences (e.g., in flight simulation) to carefully guiding the learners to a more complex understanding of a complex problem-solving ...