Design principles for the support of modelling and collaboration in a technology-based learning environment

The aim of the paper is to present and discuss the main design concepts and principles, for a collaborative modelling environment for sciences addressed to young students 11–16 years old. The main issues under discussion concern central design questions such as: what must the main modelling primitives be when addressing young students, belonging to a wide range of cognitive possibilities? In what specific ways can we support students’ reasoning offering multiple representations? How can we ensure flexible collaboration and how can we support related needs in a community level? Furthermore, how can we support self-regulation and metacognitive development for students and how can we support teachers when working in typical school conditions? This paper, which focuses on the design principles, briefly presents the derived developed tools and functionalities of a collaborative modelling environment (MODELLINGSPACE), while citing the main research results found during the design-development process.