Exploring Factors Influencing Collaborative Knowledge Construction in Online Discussions: Student Facilitation and Quality of Initial Postings

Although lots of studies have investigated collaborative knowledge construction in online courses, the factors influencing this process are yet to be fully determined. This study provides quantitative and qualitative types of evidence on how (naturally emerged) student facilitation and quality of initial postings influence collaborative knowledge construction in online discussions. We analyzed the discourse of nine student groups (N = 34) working on a case problem in an online discussion forum. We found that student facilitation was an important contributor to the process. In contrast, the contribution of low-quality postings in early stages of the discussion can jeopardize the process. This work is an attempt to address quality in online learning by helping instructors decide on encouraging student facilitation in online discussions as well as structuring and carefully monitoring the content of initial discussion postings.     

Moving Bodies to Moving Minds: A Study of the Use of Motion-Based Games in Special Education

From an embodied learning perspective, the active human body can alter the function of the brain and therefore, the cognitive process. In this work, children’s activity using motion-based technology is framed as an example of embodied learning. The present investigation focuses on the use of a series of Kinect-based educational games by 31 elementary students with special educational needs in mainstream schools, during a five-month intervention study. Results based on psychometric pre-post testing in conjunction with games-usage analytics, a student attitudinal scale, teachers’ reflection notes and teacher interviews, demonstrated the positive impact of the games on children’s short-term memory skills and emotional stage. Overall, the study improves our understanding of embodied learning via motion-based technology in teaching and learning with children with special educational needs.     

Schooling,Sexuality and Male Power: towards an emancipatory curriculum

In England economic and political imperatives are forcing sociology to retreat from the educational map, which is overladen with the ubiquitous rhetoric of managing the 1988 Education Reform Act. Progressive local education authority curriculum policies are under continuing threat from central government. Against this background, this qualitative study sets out to explore the interrelationship between masculinity and schooling. The particular focus is a group of young male gay students’ experience of schooling and sexuality. They provide a critique of most conventional theoretical work on education and gay sexuality, which is informed by models of social pathology that construct ‘blame the victim’ accounts. In reconceptualising young gays’ schooling, the students point to current repressive conditions that underpin all young people's lives in the 1990s. In so doing, they provide fresh evidence to support feminist analysis that sexual/gender systems, which are class and ‘race’ specific, are of fundamental importance in structuring curriculum. In response, the young men explain how schools are a strategically significant site on which to develop an alternative politics of schooling and sexuality. At the same time they argue that being gay is both a positive and creative experience.     

Exploring the potentials of educational robotics in the development of computational thinking: A summary of current research and practical proposal for future work

Educational robotics are increasingly appearing in educational settings, being considered a useful supporting tool for the development of cognitive skills, including Computational Thinking (CT), for students of all ages. Meanwhile, there is an overwhelming argument that CT will be a fundamental skill needed for all individuals by the middle of the twenty-first century and thus, should be cultivated in the early school years, as part of the child’s analytical thinking and as a principal component of Science-Technology-Engineering-Mathematics (STEM) education. This study reviews published literature at the intersection of CT and educational robotics, particularly focused on the use of educational robotics for advancing students’ CT skills in K-12. The reviewed articles reveal initial evidence suggesting that educational robotics can foster students’ cognitive and social skills. The paper discusses specific areas for further inquiry by learning researchers and learning practitioners. Such inquiry should start from a widely agreed definition of CT and validated measurement instruments for its assessment. A practical framework for the development of CT via robotics is next in demand, so as instructional designers and educators can implement it consistently and at scale.     

A Learning Experience in Inquiry-Based Physics with Immersive Virtual Reality: Student Perceptions and an Interaction Effect Between Conceptual Gains and Attitudinal Profiles

Journal of Science Education and Technology - The integration of immersive virtual reality (VR) in authentic science classrooms can result in a totally new learning experience for the students....