Interactive learning through web-mediated peer review of student science reports

Two studies analyzed impacts of writing and receiving web-mediated peer reviews on revision of research reports by undergraduate science students. After conducting toxicology experiments, 77 students posted draft reports and exchanged double-blind reviews. The first study randomly assigned students to four groups representing full, partial, or no peer review. Students engaging in any aspect of peer review made more revisions than students confined to reviewing their own reports. In the second study, all students engaged in peer review, and the influence of writing versus receiving critiques was analyzed using linear regression. Both studies showed receiving reviews to be more significant than writing them in terms of triggering report revisions. Students valued the peer review experience and credited it with giving them insights about their work. Conclusions address implications for optimal design of online peer review systems and for further research into student learning gains.

Effect of cooperative learning strategies on student verbal interactions and achievement during conceptual change instruction in 10th grade general science

This study evaluated the effects of cooperative learning on students' verbal interaction patterns and achievement in a conceptual change instructional model in secondary science. Current conceptual change instructional models recognize the importance of student–student verbal interactions, but lack specific strategies to encourage these interactions. Cooperative learning may provide the necessary strategies. Two sections of low-ability 10th-grade students were designated the experimental and control groups. Students in both sections received identical content instruction on the particle model of matter using conceptual change teaching strategies. Students worked in teacher-assigned small groups on in-class assignments. The experimental section used cooperative learning strategies involving instruction in collaborative skills and group evaluation of assignments. The control section received no collaborative skills training and students were evaluated individually on group work. Gains on achievement were assessed using pre- and posttreatment administrations of an investigator-designed short-answer essay test. The assessment strategies used in this study represent an attempt to measure conceptual change. Achievement was related to students' ability to correctly use appropriate scientific explanations of events and phenomena and to discard use of naive conceptions. Verbal interaction patterns of students working in groups were recorded on videotape and analyzed using an investigator-designed verbal interaction scheme. The targeted verbalizations used in the interaction scheme were derived from the social learning theories of Piaget and Vygotsky. It was found that students using cooperative learning strategies showed greater achievement gains as defined above and made greater use of specific verbal patterns believed to be related to increased learning. The results of the study demonstrated that cooperative learning strategies enhance conceptual change instruction. More research is needed to identify the specific variables mediating the effects of cooperative learning strategies on conceptual change learning. The methods employed in this study may provide some of the tools for this research.     

A window into thinking: Using student writing to understand conceptual change in science learning

This study, conducted in an inner-city middle school, followed the conceptual changes shown in 25 students' writing over a 12-week science unit. Conceptual changes for 6 target students are reported. Student understanding was assessed regarding the nature of matter and physical change by paper-and-pencil pretest and posttest. The 6 target students were interviewed about the goal concepts before and after instruction. Students' writing during lesson activities provided qualitative data about their understandings of the goal concepts across the science unit. The researcher constructed concept maps from students' written statements and compared the maps across time to assess changes in the schema of core concepts, complexity, and organization as a result of instruction. Target students' changes were studied in detail to determine patterns of conceptual change. After patterns were located in target students' maps, the remaining 19 students' maps were analyzed for similar patterns. The ideas that students identified in their writing showed changes in central concepts, complexity, and organization as the lessons progressed. When instructional events were analyzed in relation to students' demonstrated ideas, understanding of the goal conceptions appeared in students' writing more often when students had opportunities to explain their new ideas orally and in writing.     

Representing student achievements in science

In what follows, we develop a conceptual argument for expanding current visions of performance assessment to include the following three ideals: that performance/assessment addresses the value‐laden decisions about what and whose science is learned and assessed and include multiple worldviews, that performance/assessment in science simultaneously emerges in response to local needs, and that the performance/assessment is a method as well as an ongoing search for method. To make this argument, we draw together ideas raised by critical, feminist and multicultural science educators to describe an inclusive science education, one we refer to as critical science education, to raise questions about the nature and purpose of performance assessment in science education. We are particularly interested in how the science of assessment is challenged and transformed within a critical science education perspective and the conditions needed to create an equitable and inclusive practice of science and science assessment across diversity. We present a case study from a youth‐led community science project in the inner city to help contextualize our argument. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 337–354, 2001     

Students’ conceptual practices in science education

Recent research has to a limited extent explored the characteristics of students’ conceptual practices as sociocultural phenomena in general and in science education in particular. I approach this issue by studying a group of students while solving a particular scientific problem from A to Z, and as part of this analyse how different cultural means (the knowledge domain and the tools in use) structure the students’ interactions and how their interpersonal relations change over this period of time. The aim is to illustrate how these cultural means intersect in productive and less productive ways during the students’ conceptual practices. The study has its point of departure in a design experiment where a group of four students, together with their teacher, solve different problems related to the biological phenomenon of sequencing a DNA molecule (the insulin gene). Video-recordings of the students’ interactions constitute the basis for this analysis. The cultural means strongly structure the students’ conceptual practices during their problem solving processes. Whereas the knowledge domain structured the whole process, the significant roles of the website and the computer-based 3D model of the insulin gene were especially apparent during the second part of the trajectory. The intersection of these cultural means appear productive in terms of disciplinary knowledge when the students’ became aware of how to handle this relationship. The interpersonal relations between the students and their teacher altered slightly in the beginning and became increasingly more fixed during the students’ progression.     

Complexity science and student teacher supervision

To what extent might the practicum be regarded as a complex phenomenon? After introducing complexity science and its potential to illuminate educational practice, five characteristics are explored within the context of teacher education. Vignettes from a kindergarten classroom extend this exploration into the practicum setting. Five implications emerge for student teacher supervision: redefining the practicum, rethinking evaluation, surrendering certainty, acknowledging complicity, and allowing for improvisation.     

The role of conceptual conflict in conceptual change and the design of science instruction

Conceptual conflict has long been recognized as a factor that could facilitate student learning. Due, however, to the lack of a convincing explanation of why it occurs, and how it can be resolved, it has seldom been used in instructional design. Its potential use in instruction is particularly relevant in the light of the recent, well-documented finding that students' existing conceptions frequently constitute a barrier to effective learning. This article examines conceptual conflict in the light of an epistemological model of learning as conceptual change. This analysis shows that the conceptual change model provides an explanation of conceptual conflict which is sufficiently detailed to allow it to be used in the design of instruction. The results of two studies, the first of which addressed the concepts of mass, volume, and density, and the second, the concept of speed, show that instruction, designed in this way, is effective in changing students' existing conceptions.     

Kuhn and conceptual change: on the analogy between conceptual changes in science and children

This article argues that the analogy between conceptual changes in the history of science and conceptual changes in the development of young children is problematic. We show that the notions of ‘conceptual change’ in Kuhn and Piaget’s projects, the two thinkers whose work is most commonly drawn upon to support this analogy, are not compatible in the sense usually claimed. We contend that Kuhn’s work pertains not so much to the psychology of individual scientists, but to the way philosophers and historians should describe developments in communities of scientists. Furthermore, we argue that the analogy is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of science and the relation between science and common sense. The distinctiveness of the two notions of conceptual change has implications for science education research, since it raises serious questions about the relevance of Kuhn’s remarks for the study of pedagogical issues.     

The impacts of peer competition-based science gameplay on conceptual knowledge,intrinsic motivation,and learning behavioral patterns

Educational technology research and development - The present study investigates how the different modes of game-design triggers learning outcomes, focusing on peer learning and intergroup...     

Teacher and student usage of science textbooks

This study examines the differences between teachers' and students' perceptions of textbook usage in the science classroom. Four categories of use were identified: teacher directed student activities; teaching/studying guidance; as a source of information for the user and as preparation for assessment. The results of the study show that differences do occur between teachers and students with respect to their perceptions of the extent to which textbooks are used in the classroom and the purposes for which they are used, namely as a teaching/studying guide and as preparation for assessment. The findings of the study should be important to all those who use, write and publish high school science textbooks. Specializations: science education.     

Exploring student beliefs and understanding in elementary science and mathematics

This study had the goal of investigating the association among elementary students' (N = 276) science and math beliefs and the relationship between those beliefs and teachers' ratings of mathematical and science understanding. Results of structural path analysis indicate that in science, intellectual risk‐taking (IRT; the willingness to share tentative ideas, ask questions, attempting to do, and learn new things) was positively related to teachers' ratings of science understanding, while creative self‐efficacy (CSE) beliefs (i.e., students' confidence in their ability to generate ideas and solutions in science) were indirectly related (working through IRT). Results also indicate that students' scientific certainty beliefs (i.e., the belief that science knowledge is stable, fixed, and represented by correct answers) were negatively related to teachers' ratings of science understanding. With respect to math, results indicate that students' CSE beliefs were positively related to teachers' ratings of math understanding; whereas students' mathematical source beliefs (i.e., believing that math knowledge originates from external sources) were negatively related. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 49: 942–960, 2012     

Preparing student teachers for alternative assessment in science

This material is based upon work supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation California State University Student Teaching Development Project (DOE-9250027) and the W. M. Keck Foundation. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding ordanizations.