The use of learning models in physics teaching

The United States has developed as a world leader through the genius and hard work of its scientists, engineers, and innovators ("Science, Technology, Engineering and Math: Education for Global Leadership"). Science, technology, engineering and mathematics workers play a key role in the sustained growth of the United States economy (Langdon et al., 2011, p.1). As is well known, Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) is a term used to group together these branches of knowledges. By 2018, the United States of America will have more than 1.2 million job openings in STEM-related fields (U.S. Department of Labor) as there is likely to be a significant shortage of qualified graduates to fill them ("The Focus on STEM Education"). In this sense, any country in the world must pay attention to the development of education in STEM-related fields because the development of science and technology affects its economy.

Physics is a fundamental natural science, which uses sophisticated mathematical apparatus. Learners must have a high level of abstract thinking for the assimilation of Physics. In this sence, "scientists and science educators express concern about science literacy frequently" (McPherson, 2001, p.24) . Therefore, "there is a need to invest in professional development to equip teachers with the necessary skills both in implementing and assessing inquiry learning" (Gregorio, 2015, p.62). It is necessary to find learning methods, which will facilitate the understanding of educational material by students.

Ortega et al. (2015) argued that argumentation in science is one of the responsibilities to be assumed explicitly in science teaching and learning. In this context, models in teaching help learners to generate personal mental models (Chittleborough and Treagust, 2009, p.13). Visual models facilitate the formation of students' abstract thinking (Hadar and Hadar , 2007). Archer and Ng (2016) proved that integration scientific inquiry with math modeling "reinforces concepts, clears up misconceptions, and increases the ability to apply concepts in real life situations" (p. 55).

The modeling method is topical for STEM education. The use of models in science teaching provides a base level of understanding for scientific concepts (Rogers et al., 2000; Harrison and De Jong, 2005; Orgill et al., 2015; Shahan and Jenkinson, 2016; Kiray, 2016 ). The use of 2-and 3-D models in mathematics teaching was indicated by Weinburgh and Silva (2011). Schwartz and Skjold (2012) described the instruction and effectiveness of teaching about the nature of scientific models in the context of an undergraduate science course for future elementary and middle school teachers. The importance of mathematical modeling for STEM education was proved by Kertil and Gurel (2016).

But unfortunately models are used very narrowly by most teachers ("Models and Modeling: An Introduction", 2015, p.3) . On this view, Aktan (2013) said that "pre-service science teachers should engage in more modeling activities and gain more modeling experiences throughout their training programs to improve their content knowledge of models and modeling " (p. 398). The aim of article is to prove the advisability of using the learning models in physics teaching for improving the students' understanding of educational material.