The papers by Barbara Buckley, Janice Gobert, and Jennifer Snyder focus
primarily on model-based learning. Buckley and Gobert analyze their respective
domains to delineate the types of knowledge that students need to acquire in orderto obtain a rich understanding of the domain. The types of knowledge are
described in terms of structure, function, behaviour and causal mechanism in
the case of the circulatory system (Buckley). In the domain of plate tectonics
(Gobert), the types of knowledge described are spatial, causal, and dynamic. In
both cases, the papers deal with the role of representations of different types of
knowledge in the domain and students’ interactions with them. Buckley looks at
learners using representations created by others to build models while Gobert
examines representations generated by students. Both papers seek to characterize
the nature of learners’ models and the reasoning associated with these models.