How to write models

[eluser]papagno[/eluser]
Hi, I'm a new CodeIgniter user and this is my first post to this forum.

I'm having some problems understanding how to structure model classes. With Rails we use class methods for tasks like find or create records in the database, and we use instance methods to access properties of each object. How can I implement this logic with CodeIgniter? When I do

Code:

$this->load->model('example');

I get an instance of the model class.

Thank you,
Francesco