Squishing Circuits: Circuitry Learning with Electronics and Playdough in Early Childhood

While circuitry lessons have traditionally been first introduced in late elementary school, they remain challenging conceptually for undergraduates in physics and engineering courses. Seeking to provide a higher quality and earlier introduction to circuitry learning for young children (ages 3–5), this paper investigates the affordances of utilizing the Squishy Circuits toolkit, a circuitry kit that combines circuit components and playdough, as a first introduction. Our study engaged 45 children across three nursery school classrooms in open-ended play with Squishy Circuits toolkits for seven sessions over a period of 2 weeks. Here, we focus on six children in one focal classroom in order to illustrate the concepts that children are developing during play and open exploration with the kits and a range of crafting materials. Findings indicated that the Squishy Circuits toolkit enabled children to explore concepts important to circuitry learning, including current flow, polarity, and connections. Additionally, analysis of whole class conversations before and after the circuitry explorations indicated significant gains in children’s ability to discuss circuitry concepts over the course of the study. Through individual case studies, we illustrate how children enacted these concepts through their play and how the transparency afforded by the toolkit make the big ideas of circuitry visible. This work serves to illustrate how very young children can successfully begin to engage with science topics commonly introduced in later elementary school when those topics are framed through play and discovery with transparent and malleable materials.

     

Learning About Non-fiction Books Through Writing

Bobbie Neate argues that young children do not get enough experience with non-fiction books and insufficient encouragement to appreciate them. She describes here an approach towards developing this experience through the making of non-fiction books. Children learnt about the structures of these books through writing their own.     

Aesthetic Learning About,In, With and Through the Arts: A Curriculum Study

Aesthetic learning is a major issue in arts education. The ‘method of art’ is often expected to facilitate in‐depth learning not only in the arts but across the curriculum. This article defines aesthetic learning in terms of a conceptual framework based on two dimensions, one representing the goal and the other the means of aesthetic learning. The goal is described as convergent or divergent. Convergent learning is goal‐directed, focused and rational, while divergent learning is explorative, open‐ended and intuitive. The means are described as medium‐specific or medium‐neutral. Medium‐specific learning emphasises the forms of representation, for example words, pictures, algebra, dance. Medium‐neutral learning emphasises instrumental aspects of learning, such as academic achievement or personal development. Combining these dimensions two‐by‐two, the author arrives at a suggested definition of what is meant by learning about, learning in, learning with and learning through the arts. The rest of the article investigates the potential utility of this framework in various contexts and for different purposes. First, the author presents two temporary ‘Culture‐in‐School’ projects. Secondly, the framework is used to study aesthetic learning processes in sloyd (art & craft), based on student teachers’ portfolios in metalwork. Thirdly, the four modes of learning are compared to equivalent modes of teaching: the instructor, the facilitator, the advisor and the educator. Fourthly, there is a discussion on the role of aesthetics in a ‘balanced’ curriculum. Finally, there is an argument on the need for a variety of assessment tools based on the four modes of learning and teaching, such as copying, portfolios, projects and the repertory grid technique.     

Eliza in Computerland: Learning About One's Cognitive Capabilities Through the Looking Screen and Touch Board

Through Eliza's adventures in computerland, she learns many new things about children's cognitive capabilities and styles and about learning processes and environments, She learns about the possibilities of capitalizing on one's recognized strengths and overcoming one's recognized weaknesses, in various learning situations. She learns about the heterogeneity of domains of knowledge, and she realizes that everyone can understand any domain of knowledge by a variety of ways. Furthermore, she learns about how computers can aid learning by providing rich and heterogeneous learning environments and by enhancing the construction of metacognitive knowledge and self-reflection.     

Improved Student Reasoning About Carbon-Transforming Processes Through Inquiry-Based Learning Activities Derived from an Empirically Validated Learning Progression

This paper reports on our use of a fine-grained learning progression to assess secondary students’ reasoning through carbon-transforming processes (photosynthesis, respiration, biosynthesis). Based on previous studies, we developed a learning progression with four progress variables: explaining mass changes, explaining energy transformations, explaining subsystems, and explaining large-scale systems. For this study, we developed a 2-week teaching module integrating these progress variables. Students were assessed before and after instruction, with the learning progression framework driving data analysis. Our work revealed significant overall learning gains for all students, with the mean post-test person proficiency estimates higher by 0.6 logits than the pre-test proficiency estimates. Further, instructional effects were statistically similar across all grades included in the study (7th–12th) with students in the lowest third of initial proficiency evidencing the largest learning gains. Students showed significant gains in explaining the processes of photosynthesis and respiration and in explaining transformations of mass and energy, areas where prior research has shown that student misconceptions are prevalent. Student gains on items about large-scale systems were higher than with other variables (although absolute proficiency was still lower). Gains across each of the biological processes tested were similar, despite the different levels of emphasis each had in the teaching unit. Together, these results indicate that students can benefit from instruction addressing these processes more explicitly. This requires pedagogical design quite different from that usually practiced with students at this level.     

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Physlet-Based Materials in Supporting Conceptual Learning About Electricity

To provide a good understanding of many abstract concepts in the field of electricity above that of their students is often a major challenge for secondary school teachers. Many educational researchers promote conceptual learning as a teaching approach that can help teachers to achieve this goal. In this paper, we present Physlet-based materials for supporting conceptual learning about electricity. To conduct research into the effectiveness of these materials, we designed two different physics courses: one group of students, the experimental group, was taught using Physlet-based materials and the second group of students, the control group, was taught using expository instruction without using Physlets. After completion of the teaching, we assessed students’ thinking skills and analysed the materials with an independent t test, multiple regression analyses and one-way analysis of covariance. The test scores were significantly higher in the experimental group than in the control group (p < 0.05). The results of this study confirmed the effectiveness of conceptual learning about electricity with the help of Physlet-based materials.     

研究性学习：学习方式的变革

教育部颁布的《全日制普通高级中学课程计划（试验修订稿）》，将“研究性学习”作为“综合实践活动”四项内容之首定为必修课，且占有比较多的课时。“研究性学习”的开设是我国基础教育改革，特别是课程改革深入发展的必然产物。它为以培养创新精神和实践能力为重点的素质教育提供了新思路和生长点；势必引发学生学习方式的深刻变革，为学生个性和创造力的充分发展开辟新天地和新途径。本文拟从现代教学论的视野，对研究性学习的一些主要问题试作探讨。一、研究性学习的基本涵义研究性学习是当今世界性基础教育改革和发展的一个共同关注的…     

体验教育刍议

体验教育是我国基础教育改革中的一个亮点,要充分认识它的教育价值,把握它的特点,做好规划,着力培养学生的体悟意识和能力。教师要当好导引者,使体验教育收到实效。     

漫谈英语学习

学习英语应该针对自己 ,采用适合的学习方法 ,结合老师的引导 ,从自己感兴趣的材料入手 ,完全摒弃错误的英语学习方式 ,树立起新的英语学习习惯 ,使自己有所提高     

教而学存在的弊端与解决的方法(英文)

在语言教学中,通过教而学是公认的事实.然而,这还远远不够,仅仅通过教来学习并不能充分活化知识.因此,英语语言教学应注重培养学生语言知识的运用能力.本文通过对非英语专业学生和大学英语教师进行问卷调查的形式找出"教而学"存在的弊端,并提出相应的解决方法.     

论思想之学

作者主张这样的学习路线学思想,用思想去学,学出自己的思想来.学思想,就是要以追求思想为学问的崇高境界和最有价值的内容,以思想之学统领知识之学、经验之学、能力之学、技艺之学;用思想去学,就是尽可能把学到的思想运用到新一轮学习中去,开展深入的、经常性的独立思考,用这些思想去评判所学,反思所学,融会所学,保持"有准备的头脑";学出自己的思想来,就是形成和产生惟我所有的立场、观点和方法,让自己的头脑不断生成新颖独特的思路、观念和想法,为这个世界贡献有价值的思想产品.     

Learning Through Computational Modeling

Summary

When thinking of reasoning, problem solving, communication, and connecting related ideas, the tool of choice in nearly every discipline is the microcomputer. Furthermore, unlike the traditional calculator, the modern classroom computer has an unparalleled ability to implement both graphical and procedural components of mathematics understanding in a single unified object. By students' creation and utilization of mathematically relevant computer-based objects, this dual encapsulation provides them with a unique opportunity to see both the form of representation and their actions utilizing this representation simultaneously.

This paper suggests that the object-oriented environments that modern technology enables are ideally suited to parallel and facilitate the ability of students to take a broader variety of action upon objectsof a nature and kind hitherto unknown. These student-controlled actionsupon these mathematically powerful and computer-enabled objectshave the potential for creating classroom environments that both surpass the pale hopes of the integrated learning system and surprise those wedded to a conservative view of Piagetian developmental levels.     

Learning Through Case Comparisons: A Meta-Analytic Review

Over the past 20 years, there has been much research on how people learn from case comparisons. This work has implemented comparison activities in a variety of different ways across a wide range of laboratory and classroom contexts. In an effort to assess the overall effectiveness of case comparisons across this diversity of implementation and contexts and to explore what variables might moderate learning outcomes, we conducted a meta-analysis of 57 experiments with 336 tests. Random effects analyses of the 336 tests revealed that case comparison activities commonly led to greater learning outcomes than other forms of case study including sequential, single case, and nonanalogous, as well as traditional instruction and control (d = .50), 95% CI [.44, .56]. Of 15 potential moderators, four variables were found to reliably moderate the effectiveness of case comparisons: the objective of the comparison, the presentation of a principle, the content, and the lag between the comparison and testing. Asking learners to find similarities between cases, providing principles after the comparisons, using perceptual content, and testing learners immediately are all associated with greater learning. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of these results for cognitive theory and classroom practice.     

Learning About Therapy Theories

ABSTRACT

A scale of therapist theoretical orientation, the Theoretical Evaluation Self Test (TEST), was tested as a tool for increasing content knowledge about psychotherapy theories, and as a means to stimulate reflective learning. MSW students displayed statistically significant gains in content knowledge after completing the scale and related self-scoring materials, as measured by a pre- and posttest design. Both MSW students and practitioners rated TEST as an effective educational experience. The most frequent qualitative response was that TEST increased insight and understanding of theoretical preferences. Applications of TEST as an educational tool for graduate students and practicing clinicians are discussed.