“With this (the CTSI methodology) the students were about understand the concepts much better. They were not passive listeners. That was the best thing that happened.” 

-       A biology teacher 

“They have to see whether their model works or not. For that they require some understanding about what free fall is. So, when you are developing a simulation, that time your understanding of the concept gets reinforced.”

-       A physics teacher

“The students were learning the concepts as well as helping their partners to learn the concepts better. Rather than me giving them answers, the answers came from them.”

-       A biology teacher

“Generally, when we (teachers) take a class, it’s we mostly we are speaking, and one or two students are participating. But, in this (CTSI unit) every student got an opportunity to perform. Because of this my own teaching has changed.” She described further what similar strategies she has started using to improve student participation. 

-       A biology teacher

“The model was given to them (the students) and they were told to play with it. They had to observe and answer the questions. If they are told and asked to write answers, they don’t feel that they have any role in the learning. Whereas, here they were constantly interacting with the model, making observations. Maybe they feel that they are more in control of their learning.”

-       A physics teacher

“It was so wonderful to see that we just started with an idea and working together we could come up with something in such a short amount of time. We could achieve effective learning. When we were designing, that time itself it became clear to me what to explain to the students and how to relate their observations with the theory.”

-       A physics teacher 

“The co-design method worked really well. Initially, only the destination was clear that we have to make a model and create a unit, but the process was not clear. As we started progressing, we figured out how to build the model and develop activities for students. When we started to build the (computational) model as we wanted, it created a base for us to think about what kind of activities we can conduct using the model.”

-       A mathematics teacher (response paraphrased)