Collaboration modality, cognitive load, and science inquiry learning in virtual inquiry environments

Educational multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs) have been shown to be effective platforms for situated science inquiry curricula. While researchers find MUVEs to be supportive of collaborative scientific inquiry processes, the complex mix of multi-modal messages present in MUVEs can lead to cognitive overload, with learners unable to effectively process the rich information encountered in virtual space. In this study, we investigated the effect of communication modality on cognitive load and science inquiry learning in students completing a science inquiry curriculum in an educational MUVE. Seventy-eight undergraduate education majors from a large southwestern university participated in this control-treatment study. Significant positive results were found for reducing cognitive load for participants communicating through voice-based chat, although this reduction was not found to influence learning outcomes. We conclude that use of voice-based communication can successfully reduce cognitive load in MUVE-based inquiry curricula.     

Impact of learning styles on the community of inquiry presences in multi-disciplinary blended learning environments

In this research, a survey method utilising questionnaires and focus group interviews was employed to determine correlations between students’ learning styles and each of the presences in the CoI Framework across disciplines as well as students’ blended learning experience. To this end, the linear regression model was the statistical approach used to explore the correlation between each of the presences and the learning styles after controlling for the disciplines. Consequently, a three–way cross-tab using Chi-square statistics was the statistical method used to discover the variations of the students’ experience of blended learning under different disciplines and learning styles. A total of 12 lecturers and 377 students from three private institutions were involved in this study. The results show that among the four discipline categories, only the soft-applied has a significant effect on the linear regression model. In this particular discipline, the Kinesthetic variable alone has a significant effect on all the three presences in the CoI Framework. The R-squared values are rather small. Further investigation should be directed towards an inclusion of a larger number of postgraduate participants, more courses in the soft-pure and hard-pure categories, and the learning styles of lecturers.     

Teaching and learning in digital environments: The resurgence of resource-based learning

The digital age has not simply changed the nature of resources and information; it has transformed several basic social and economic enterprises. Contemporary society—the settings where we live, work, and learn—has likewise changed dramatically. Both the amount of information and access to it have grown exponentially; a significant potential for using varied resources in numerous ways for instruction and learning has emerged. However, several issues related to the educational uses of varied resources (e.g., people, place, things, ideas) must be addressed if we are successfully to implement resource-based learning environments. In this paper, we trace the changing nature of resources and perspectives in their use for learning in the digital age, describe the overarching structures of resource-based learning environments, and identify key challenges to be addressed.     

Identifying different registers of digital literacy in virtual learning environments

In this paper social semiotics, and systemic functional linguistics in particular, are used in order to identify registers of digital literacy in the use of virtual learning environments. The framework of social semiotics provides means to systemize and discuss digital literacy as a linguistic and semiotic issue. The following research question was investigated in the paper: What different registers of digital literacy could be identified when students and teachers communicate and interact in a VLE?The research question was answered by, initially, an application of social semiotics to virtual learning environments, and its relation to the knowledge domains of everyday, specialized and reflexive digital literacy. This application was then further developed, using an analysis of a course specific use of a virtual learning environment in a case study. The study identified discrepancies between the digital literacies of teachers, designers and students. These discrepancies mean that a shared semiotic register was sometimes difficult to maintain. The conclusion is that the designers and teachers as co-designers of virtual learning environments need a better understanding of everyday digital literacy in order to design more sufficient learning environments. The paper shows that digital literacy must be considered as a situated practice, and that it concerns functional and communicative competencies rather than acquiring a set of technical skills.     

The stretchiness of learning the digital mystery of learning in one-to-one environments in schools

The aim of the study is to generate knowledge of how teachers change their teaching and how pupils change their learning as a consequence of working in One-to-One environments in schools. The result shows that teachers and students are changing their relation to teaching and learning when school is digitized. The most important dimension of this change is that content related knowledge of the digitized learning in a one-to-one school, is a prerequisite for improved quality and better results in schools where digital artefacts are used. The results also show in what ways teachers must understand that knowledge is stretched between analogue and digital teaching and learning in the classroom.     

Multimedia learning environments: Issues of learner control and navigation

Using schema theory as a framework, we view learning as an active, constructive process. It is affected not only by learners' internal knowledge structures, but by the external constraints of the learning environment as well (Kozma, 1991). This article examines how different internal learner characteristics (e.g., prior knowledge, self efficacy and interest) and different external constraints (e.g., learner control, instructional design and level of control) influence the learning process. Specifically, we address learning from a variety of multimedia environments such as video, hypertexts, kiosks and other hypermedia within a schema theoretic approach that incorporates a constructivist view.     

Interactions in virtual learning environments: new roles for digital technology

For the last 10 years, online pre-service teacher distance education has increased significantly in Brazil. As a result, research on this educational modality has also increased, in particular, research investigating the different roles students and teachers play in these courses. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of digital technologies in two specific contexts: how teachers, tutors, and students play a role in producing interactive digital didactic material and how digital technologies themselves can play a role in teaching distance learning courses. But for these roles to emerge, we point to the need for participants of online courses to interact collaboratively. To identify these roles, grounded theory, a branch of qualitative research, was used as the two roles were articulated. Data were produced from virtual observations in virtual learning environments and virtual interviews. The results stress that both highlighted roles are related. They transform teacher and student roles and participation in the virtual classroom, and an “agency of media” emerges in online mathematics education.     

BTI口译教学中的研究性学习和研究性教学

随着翻译学科的发展和"翻译专业本科教学质量国家标准"的出台,翻译本科专业人才培养的目标进一步明确。这对教师的教和学生的学都提出了新要求。本文以BTI的口译课程实践为研究对象,探讨把研究性学习和研究性教学方法引入口译课程之中,以期改变传统教学中以知识传授为主的教和学的方式,调动学生的主观能动性,依托学生的实践,使其理解口译工作的过程特点,提高学生口译能力。     

探究性学习研究

探索性学习是我国教育改革大力提倡的一种学习方式，探究性学习的实施与开发需要一定的社会基础和心理基础。在实施的过程中，教师与指导者需要掌握探究性学习的界定、类型；同时，也需要掌握探究性学习开发的具体模式，从而为这种学习方式在基础教育领域开发奠定一定的基础。     

浅谈研究性学习中的评价问题

综合实践活动是一门探索性课程,其中的研究性学习强调学生在教师指导下走出教室,通过实践活动以获得直接体验,增强探究和创新意识,培养科学探究的精神,发展综合能力,它以活动性、开放性、系统性以及充分体现学生的主体性为特征。学生在开展研究性学习时教师应如何进行评价呢?为     

Understanding distinctions in learning in hybrid,and online environments: an empirical investigation of the community of inquiry framework

This study of 723 college students seeks to assess the adequacy of the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework for describing and explaining differences in learning outcomes in hybrid and fully online learning environments. Hypothesizing that the CoI model's theoretical constructs of presence reflect educational effectiveness in a variety of environments, this article seeks evidence of whether students in varying learning environments are likely to rank them differently with regard to teaching, social, and cognitive presence. The study utilizes factor-, hierarchical-regression-, and path analyses to determine the validity of the CoI constructs as well as to characterize the nature of relationships between them. Results suggest that the model is coherent and accounts for the small but significant differences recently reported in the literature regarding the superiority of hybrid environments relative to fully online environments (Means, B., Toyama, Y., Murphy, R., Bakia, M., & Jones, K. (2009). Evaluation of evidence-based practices in online learning: A meta-analysis and review of online learning studies. Washington, DC: US Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development). Recommendations for future research and practice are included.     

Teacher epistemology and scientific inquiry in computerized classroom environments

A 20-week classroom-based study was conducted to investigate the extent to which a computerized learning environment could facilitate students' development of higher-level thinking skills associated with scientific inquiry. In two classes students' interactions with a scientific data base—Birds of Antarctica—were closely monitored, and the mediating roles of the teachers' epistemologies were examined. Interpretive data were generated and analyzed in relation to a constructivist perspective on learning. In the class where the teacher implemented a constructivist-oriented pedagogy, students took advantage of enhanced opportunities to generate creative questions and conduct complex scientific investigations. These higher-level thinking skills were much less evident in the class in which a more transmissionist-oriented pedagogy prevailed. The results of the study suggest that it is not the computer itself that facilitates inquiry learning; the teacher's epistemology is a key mediating influence on students' use of the computer as a tool of scientific inquiry.     

生物学科研究性学习的实践探索

在生物学科实施研究性学习旨在倡导建构的学习 ,改变传统的接受性学习方式 ,使学生主动参与、乐于探究、勤于动手、合作交流 ,促进学生有意义学习的可持发展及创新精神的培养和实践能力的提高。这要求教师的教育观念和教学行为必须发生转变 ,教师不再只是知识的传播者 ,应同时成为学生学习的组织者、参与者、指导者和促进者。1　选题方向生物学教学中可供研究性学习选题的内容十分丰富 ,归纳起来选题的方向可以有以下八个方面。1.1　生物学的基本概念和规律　生物学基本概念和规律 ,是生物科学探究的主要内容 ,也是学生学习生物学的基础。因…     

Personal inquiry: innovations in participatory design and models for inquiry learning

This paper describes a participatory design approach to the development of inquiry‐based learning supported through a technology toolkit. The work is part of an interdisciplinary project – Personal Inquiry (PI). The paper focuses on the approach we adopted, concentrating in particular on the two mediating artefacts we used to guide and frame the design process during two design workshops. The first mediating artefact used was an inquiry framework developed as part of the wider PI project and the second was Kellett’s enquiry research bubbles, which is a framework to guide enquiry‐based thinking processes. The paper reports on data collected during the workshops and reflects on the value of the approach adopted. The paper also explores the PI‐team’s own reflections on the design process and its role in the overall project.     

生物学教学中如何引导学生探究

“研究性学习是学生在教师指导下，从自然、社会和生活中选择和确定专题进行研究，并在研究过程中主动地获取知识、应用知识、解决问题的学习活动”(《“普通高中”研究性学习实施指南》)。目前研究性学习大多采用课外兴趣小组的形式进行活动，从学生生活和社会现实中确定课题开展研究。课堂是提高学生科学素质的主战场，生物学作为自然科学中的一门     

研究性学习实践与思考

研究性学习对于学生的学习方式有深远的意义,已作为一门课程在普通高中开设了几年时间。就目前的情况来看,无论是高中学生还是授课教师普遍缺乏有关课题研究的经验与方法,在实际操作中往往会出现各种问题,因此应该加强指导。