Software that assists learning within a complex abstract domain: the use of constraint and consequentiality as learning mechanisms

This paper describes a research project into undergraduates’ use of a software tool to learn symbolic logic—a complex abstract domain that has been shown to be intimidating for students. The software allows the students to manipulate proofs in certain ways and then calculates the consequences of their actions. A research method has been developed that allowed students’ use of this tool to be modelled, and this model was then used to identify, refine and create visual cues that provide support for students’ reasoning. The focus of this paper is the role of the software as an artefact to aid students’ visualisation of reasoning processes rather than the logic itself. The main mechanisms by which this visualisation is supported are the imposition of constraints on the actions available and the demonstration to students of the consequences of their actions. The study shows that the software encouraged experimentation with different routes to a proof, and constituted a challenge to fixated reasoning.     

Facilitating the learning process in design-based learning practices: an investigation of teachers’ actions in supervising students

Background: In research on design-based learning (DBL), inadequate attention is paid to the role the teacher plays in supervising students in gathering and applying knowledge to design artifacts, systems, and innovative solutions in higher education.

Purpose: In this study, we examine whether teacher actions we previously identified in the DBL literature as important in facilitating learning processes and student supervision are present in current DBL engineering practices.

Sample: The sample (N=16) consisted of teachers and supervisors in two engineering study programs at a university of technology: mechanical and electrical engineering. We selected randomly teachers from freshman and second-year bachelor DBL projects responsible for student supervision and assessment.

Design and method: Interviews with teachers, and interviews and observations of supervisors were used to examine how supervision and facilitation actions are applied according to the DBL framework.

Results: Major findings indicate that formulating questions is the most common practice seen in facilitating learning in open-ended engineering design environments. Furthermore, other DBL actions we expected to see based upon the literature were seldom observed in the coaching practices within these two programs.

Conclusions: Professionalization of teachers in supervising students need to include methods to scaffold learning by supporting students in reflecting and in providing formative feedback.     

A framework for monitoring instructional environments in a virtual world

Virtual worlds are gaining momentum as a platform for delivering simulation‐based educational experiences to students. However, a key aspect of virtual world‐based education that has received little attention is recording and analyzing students' in‐world actions. This capability is essential for assessing what students have learned through their simulation experience, and engaging the students in post‐simulation reflective learning. In this research, we present a framework for recording and analyzing students' actions in a virtual world. This framework is based upon pedagogical theories of exploratory and experiential learning, and is defined in a virtual‐world agnostic manner. The framework consists of two parts: (1) the Avatar Capabilities Model, which defines the educationally relevant actions that a student can take within a virtual world and (2) the Simulation Capture and Analysis toolkit that records and analyzes these actions, from an educational perspective. These analyses provide instructors with systematically collected evidence of the students' actions during their virtual world experience. This alleviates the need for instructors to directly observe students, thereby allowing for the scaling‐up of virtual worlds use in education. We have demonstrated the usefulness of the tool via a pilot study, with two students, in an emergency medical education context.     

Safe spaces? A social-ecological perspective on student perceptions of safety in the environment of the school canteen

ABSTRACT

Background Research suggests that negative peer interactions that compromise student safety and wellbeing often occur in spaces at school that are not easily visible, not adequately monitored, overcrowded and/or relatively unstructured. In a large online survey conducted in Swedish schools by the anti-bullying organisation, Friends, a small proportion of students indicated that they felt unsafe in the school canteen and responded to a question about why they felt unsafe there. As the canteen is often reported to be a space where negative peer interactions, such as harassment, bullying and other forms of school violence, occur, but little is known about why negative peer interactions occur there, we were particularly interested in exploring why some students perceived their school canteen to be an unsafe space.

Purpose Taking a social-ecological perspective, our aim was to investigate why students reported feeling unsafe in the environment of the school canteen.

Method In order to investigate this question, we analysed 1,547 responses from students in Swedish schools in grades 3–6 (ages 9–12). The responses were from the anti-bullying organisation Friends’ online questionnaires from 2011 to 2016. In the responses, students who indicated that they felt unsafe in the school canteen explained why they felt this way. Data were analysed qualitatively, using a six-step thematic approach.

Findings The analysis identified four key themes: Space constraints, Time restrictions, The risk of social blunders and The negative actions of others. We discuss the findings in terms of the macrosystem, exosystem, mesosystem and microsystem.

Conclusions In matters of student safety and wellbeing, we argue that it is not only important to consider the social context, but also how that context is interconnected with environmental and structural elements.     

Does formative feedback on search behaviour help students in answering comprehension questions from an available text? / ¿Ayuda la retroalimentación formativa sobre el comportamiento de búsqueda a contestar preguntas de comprensión en lecturas con texto disponible?

This study analyses the efficacy of formative feedback to boost students’ search behaviour when answering comprehension questions in a with-text reading situation, which is a common reading situation in instructional and assessment settings. In these reading situations search strategies play an important role to predict students’ performance. Sixty-five high school students read two texts and answered eight multiple-choice comprehension questions per text using the software Read&Answer, which recorded all the students’ actions. After answering each question, students received either global-search-feedback or specific-search-feedback, which differed in the specificity of their information, or no-feedback. Participants who received any feedback had a second chance to correct their wrong answers. Specific-search-feedback increased students’ search decisions and improved their use of relevant information to repair wrong answers over global-search-feedback. Consequently, specific-search-feedback improved students’ performance when they corrected wrong answers over global-search-feedback. These results have implications for the design and implementation of formative feedback in computer-based systems aimed at improving students’ performance and teaching reading literacy skills.     

Absenting the absence(s) in the education of poor minority ethnic students: a critical realist framework

Absences, in terms of lacks, are identified by researchers as explaining factors of failure in inclusive education, for example, the absence of minority ethnic students’ native language from instruction. However, there is a lack of a clear framework against which to discuss issues of absence in the education of poor minority ethnic students. In this paper, I draw on the notion of laminated systems from Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism philosophy, in order to provide a conceptual theoretical tool for identifying and addressing absences in the education of poor minority ethnic students in a more structured and conscious way. This is done by drawing on qualitative empirical data, collected from a school with a high concentration of poor minority ethnic students in Cyprus, as part of a PhD thesis. Findings illustrate that absence(s) are interrelated and emergent features which occur in different levels of reality. Absences need to be identified and decided a posteriori for each case, whereas mono-dimensional, non-specific or ‘one-size-fits-it-all’ strategic actions should be avoided.     

Urban High School Students’ Critical Science Agency: Conceptual Understandings and Environmental Actions Around Climate Change

This study investigates how the enactment of a climate change curriculum supports students’ development of critical science agency, which includes students developing deep understandings of science concepts and the ability to take action at the individual and community levels. We examined the impact of a four to six week urban ecology curriculum on students from three different urban high schools in the USA. Data collection included pre and posttest written assessments from all students (n = 75) and pre and post interviews from focal students (n = 22) to examine how students’ conceptual understandings, beliefs and environmental actions changed. Our analyses showed that at the beginning of the curriculum, the majority of students believed that climate change was occurring; yet, they had limited conceptual understandings about climate change and were engaged in limited environmental actions. By the end of the curriculum, students had a significant increase in their understanding of climate change and the majority of students reported they were now engaged in actions to limit their personal impact on climate change. These findings suggest that believing a scientific theory (e.g. climate change) is not sufficient for critical science agency; rather, conceptual understandings and understandings of personal actions impact students’ choices. We recommend that future climate change curriculum focus on supporting students’ development of critical science agency by addressing common student misconceptions and by focusing on how students’ actions can have significant impacts on the environment.     

Patterns in the form of formative feedback and student response

Formative feedback currently receives attention as an effective means of increasing student learning. However, how to frame feedback to achieve the best effect is an ongoing debate. In this study we analyse a written data-set of 174 segments of teacher feedback and student response, coded using 10 emergent feedback and 14 response categories. As it is argued that feedback is a dialogue between students and teacher, links between feedback and response segments are viewed as a dialogical framework that we visualise and understand using network analysis. From this network we conclude that some ways of formulating feedback are more productive and likely to lead to types of responses that signify learning than others. We thus identify the reflection group of responses, consisting of the categories reflective response, explanation and students investigate own thinking. The feedback categories that link primarily to the reflection group are open question, wondering question and leading question, which we categorise as the questioning group of feedback. We discuss these patterns against a previously published framework, and by discussing specific examples we further our understanding of what makes feedback formative.     

Inquiry-Based Whole-Class Teaching with Computer Simulations in Physics

In this study we investigated the pedagogical context of whole-class teaching with computer simulations. We examined relations between the attitudes and learning goals of teachers and their students regarding the use of simulations in whole-class teaching, and how teachers implement these simulations in their teaching practices. We observed lessons presented by 24 physics teachers in which they used computer simulations. Students completed questionnaires about the lesson, and each teacher was interviewed afterwards. These three data sources captured implementation by the teacher, and the learning goals and attitudes of students and their teachers regarding teaching with computer simulations. For each teacher, we calculated an Inquiry-Cycle-Score (ICS) based on the occurrence and order of the inquiry activities of predicting, observing and explaining during teaching, and a Student-Response-Rate (SRR) reflecting the level of active student participation. Statistical analyses revealed positive correlations between the inquiry-based character of the teaching approach and students’ attitudes regarding its contribution to their motivation and insight, a negative correlation between the SRR and the ICS, and a positive correlation between teachers’ attitudes about inquiry-based teaching with computer simulations and learning goal congruence between the teacher and his/her students. This means that active student participation is likely to be lower when the instruction more closely resembles the inquiry cycle, and that teachers with a positive attitude about inquiry-based teaching with computer simulations realize the importance of learning goal congruence.     

Student ideas about weathering and erosion

Abstract

This paper provides an overview and discussion of a study concerning student ideas about the terms ‘weathering’ and ‘erosion’. It describes the results of a survey conducted on 236 students, aged 16‐19, to ascertain details of their ideas about these two terms. The main factor students use to discriminate between weathering and erosion is movement. A majority of students appreciate that weathering occurs in situ, whereas erosion involves transport. Many students regard weathering as solely related to atmospheric elements, which results in some erosional and weathering processes being incorrectly classified. Human actions are perceived as types of accelerated erosion, but uncertainty surrounds whether animal activities are bio‐erosion or biological weathering. This uncertainty is also reflected in the literature. Taken collectively the results have a number of implications for teachers addressing these concepts and for the students they teach.     

Learning with the Natural Environment: How Walking with Nature Can Actively Shape Creativity and Contribute to Holistic Learning

Learning takes place in various spaces through human and nonhuman interactions. Considering the urgent need for rethinking how humans relate to nature, in this article we present a MA level course in the context of art, craft and design to discuss how learning with the natural environment approach can impact learning experiences. We introduce walking with nature as a creative method that fosters students’ ability to let the environment actively shape their creative events. The encounter with nature-based materials in their different forms and following the material's flow provides students with a foundation for their creative processes. This study proposes that walking can facilitate the entanglement between the student's knowledge and encountered materials, generating an emotional and dialogical relationship with the natural environment that contributes to a holistic learning experience. We propose that such an experience can help in comprehending the importance of the caring actions we need to take and maintain towards the nonhuman world.     

Inclusive education and students without special educational needs

Background:?In the debate on inclusive education, students without special educational needs (SEN) are an important topic. However, there is a lot unknown about differences between these typical students in inclusive and non-inclusive classes. For example, the neutral results that are often found in earlier research could be caused by positive effects for some students, and negative effects for others.

Purpose:?This study investigated whether there is a relation between inclusive education and the academic achievement and socio-emotional functioning of typical students, and, more importantly, whether inclusive education affects the achievement and socio-emotional functioning of more and less intelligent typical students differently. Furthermore, we investigated whether differences occur by type of SEN of the included students. Here, we made a distinction between students with behavioural, cognitive and other problems.

Sample:?A representative sample of 27,745 students without SEN in Dutch primary education from a large cohort study in the Netherlands was used.

Design and methods:?Language and arithmetic tests were used to assess academic achievement. For socio-emotional functioning, both teacher and student questionnaires were used. A non-verbal IQ test was used to assess student intelligence. Based on the number of students with diagnosed SEN, the students without SEN were divided into several groups: typical students with no, a few and more than a few students with (certain types of) SEN in their class. Multi-level regression analyses were used to compare these groups.

Results:?For academic achievement, no differences were found between students without SEN in inclusive and non-inclusive classes. In this, we found no differences between intelligent and less intelligent typical students. For socio-emotional functioning, some differences were found, but the practical importance of these differences is unclear, since the effect sizes were small. The functioning of typical students does not meaningfully differ by type of SEN of the included students.

Conclusions:?The findings of this study are interesting in the light of the ongoing inclusion debate. Arguments against inclusive education often concern an assumed adverse effect on typical students. As in this study, hardly any differences were found between typical students in inclusive and non-inclusive primary school classes, this research strengthens the scientific evidence in support of inclusive education.     

The “flawless” school and the problematic actors: Research on policy documents to counteract discrimination and degrading treatment in schools in Sweden

In Sweden, the anti-discrimination initiatives and the efforts against degrading treatment are promoted by two laws indicating self-regulatory and transparent actions toward preventing both. To be successful, it is important that everybody involved in the work has the same understanding of the task and that everybody understands written formulations of local policy documents, here labelled equity plans, in order not to reinforce inequalities when counteracting discrimination and degrading treatment. Our aim is to explore the world-views that are expressed by the schools in their equity plans. We ask what are the perceived causes of discrimination and degrading treatment within the schools, what solutions in the equity plans emerge and which subject positions are constructed and made possible. The analysis rendered three discourses of which we can see recurring signs in the material and these have been labelled The perfect school discourse, The designated discourse and The educational discourse. These discourses are different in how they relate to discrimination and degrading treatment in school and they also provide different opportunities for students. We conclude that policy-making is important as a means to change discriminatory patterns and we suggest how to avoid drawing on discourses that are likely to counteract the goals.     

Multilingual students’ use of translanguaging in science classrooms

ABSTRACT

This study describes multilingual students’ authentic use of their first and second languages in a translanguaging science classroom, from a sociocultural perspective. The study is ethnographic, and has followed some lessons each month in a translanguaging science classroom at a primary school for three years. The observed lessons were documented by four video cameras and four audio recorders, while field notes and different types of students’ texts and other teaching materials were also collected. In order investigate how language operates, and to realise the meaning semantically, we analysed the students’ use of both first and second language to tie paradigmatic relations, and how they move in linguistic loops between languages and discourses. The results illustrate the ways in which a translanguaging science classroom constitutes a resource in joint negotiations of the scientific content and its related language for multilingual students, and benefits the students’ ability to relate and contextualise the science content to prior experience. The creation of translanguaging science classrooms, in which students’ experiences and diverse cultural and linguistic resources interweave with school science, and in which multilingual students are enabled and encouraged to use all available language resources, has important implications for science education.     

Environmental Perception as a Diagnostic Probe of Environmental Complexity Levels

Purpose: Educational methods to diagnose and improve the level of environmental conception are required. The present work reports a methodology based on studies about the environmental perception of a university public, divided into general students and those related to the forest sciences, who are involved with disciplines and researches related to e.g. environmental management.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The environmental perception obtained from the graphical representation of environment and the most relevant actions indicated by the students to achieve the environmental conservation, divided in four levels of complexity, were correlated using principal component analysis.

Findings: The students from both groups having the highest scores in environmental perception prioritize actions related to the comprehension and responsibility levels, while the ideal scenario would be to indicate actions related to competence and citizenship. Thus, the complex concept about environment of the students is still incipient and, therefore, educational strategies can be traced based on the profiles obtained.

Practical Implications: The method for environmental perception can be designed for different populations and a scheme relating environmental perception with four levels of actions on behalf of the environmental conservation is proposed to diagnose environmental conceptions, as well as to guide educational strategies about socio-ecological system.

Originality/Value: A semi-quantitative method was developed to estimate, clearly and directly, the level of complexity about the environmental knowledge of university students and, consequently, to predict the actions on behalf of the environmental conservation that they would probably perform.     

A study of practical‐moral knowledge in science teaching: Case studies in physical science classrooms

This study further extends a conceptual framework that explores science teaching as a “practice” not reducible to the application of formal knowledge, but as informed by teachers' practical‐moral knowledge. A hermeneutic model was developed to examine practical‐moral knowledge indirectly by investigating teachers' commitments, interpretations, actions, and dialectic interactions between them. The study also aimed to analyze teachers' actions in terms of their interpretations and commitments as they realize “internal goods” of their practice. Ethnographic case studies of three science teachers were conducted through classroom observation, in‐depth interviews and dialogues, and artifact analysis. A commitment of preparing students for national exams was common to the three teachers but was manifested differently in classroom practices. This commitment originated from interpretations about the duty of “good” teachers not letting students and schools down. Other emergent commitments were commitments: to conceptual understandings, to “challenge” learners, and to social modeling. We present each with associated interpretations and actions. The concepts of practical wisdom (phronesis) and gap closing are used to characterize teachers' practical knowledge and its development respectively. Implications for teacher education are discussed. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47: 929–951, 2010     

Fostering thinking through science in the early years of schooling

The purpose of this research was to investigate and describe concrete examples of Year 1 students engaged in good thinking and to generate assertions about the ways teachers can foster habits of good thinking through science. The research design was a multiple case study of 32 lessons, of which four are analysed in detail in this paper. The results suggest that young children engaged in good thinking are likely to explain and demonstrate their ideas and actions and to make suggestions for solving problems. Children engaged in good thinking also are likely to highlight discrepancies, adopt new ideas, and work collaboratively. The results indicate that teachers can foster habits of good thinking through science; first, by accepting difficulty as an integral part of the learning process, second, by encouraging children to explain and talk about their ideas and, finally, by creating an environment where thinking is a valued classroom process.     

Decision‐Making in Future Science and Technology Curricula

Summaries

English

In this article, the author argues in favour of a decision‐making orientated science and technology curriculum for secondary school students. To achieve this, the curriculum should (i) expose students to open‐ended problems within their natural setting, (ii) provide students with real decision‐making situations and (iii) involve them in scientific‐technological social actions, e.g. in community institutions or industrial plants.