Designing System Dualities: Characterizing a Web-Supported Professional Development Community

In this article we focus on the challenges we have encountered in attempting to support the development of an online community of practice for grade 5-12 mathematics and science teachers. Specifically, this project involves the design and evaluation of an electronic knowledge network, the Inquiry Learning Forum (ILF), a web-based professional development system designed to support a community of practice (CoP) of in-service and preservice mathematics and science teachers who are creating, reflecting upon, sharing, and improving inquiry-based pedagogical practices. This research examines the interplay among a variety of variables that characterize the dynamics of building a social network through which participating teachers will seek to share and improve their pedagogical practices. Our research suggests that designing for virtual communities involves balancing and leveraging complex dualities from the "inside" rather than applying some set of design principles from the "outside." This research provides an illuminative case study from which others can more readily identify patterns occurring in their own interventions and navigate the challenges they face more intelligently.     

An Introduction to the Special Issue: Designing for Virtual Communities in the Service of Learning

In the sociology of childhood and youth, children have been conceptualized as passive subjects on hold, still in the process of becoming—rather than in an effective state of being. In effect, children have been conceptualized as the subjects rather than the objects of the research process. This influence got carried over to digital divide research. The latest thinking in the field has started to define and understand children and young people as heterogeneous, nonpassive, autonomous, diverse, and versatile agents actively appropriating the Internet in meaningful contexts of their everyday lives. This article seeks to move the discourse forward via four parallel binary logistic regressions that assess diverse and socially mediated opportunities needed to learn basic digital skills from a representative sample of 6,602 primary and secondary students from 350 schools and high schools in Catalonia, Spain. Our research shows that the school appears to be playing a secondary role, as compared with children and young people's social practice in heterogenic contexts of everyday life, not only for Internet training but also for providing opportunities to develop and master basic digital skills.     

A co-evolutionary model for supporting the emergence of authenticity

The purpose of this study was to share our experiences using emerging technologies to create an authentic learning context where preservice teachers at a university and practicing K-12 teachers collaborate in the conduct of real-world (as opposed to textbook) tasks. In this paper, we demonstrate and evaluate the design of professional development that involved a partnership between two universities and eight surrounding K-12 schools. This partnership provides the foundation for supporting a learning community of preservice and practicing teachers that situates in collaborative practices that are both authentic and valuable to all involved. Specifically, we studied how issues of ownership, power, authenticity, and collaboration contribute to students' successes and the success of the program through four case studies. We also explored how asynchronous conferencing tools might be used to facilitate communication across geographic and chronological boundaries, breaking down traditional barriers to distributed communities of practice and making possible the creation of a co-evolutionary model for supporting the emergence of a context that was authentic to both preservice and in-service teachers. In contrast to claims that suggest authenticity for an individual can be prescribed to a learner by the instructor, we deny the legitimacy of preauthentication. Instead, an assumption underlying this research is that authenticity is an emergent process that is actualized through individuals' participation in tasks and practices of value to themselves and to a community of practice. The co-evolutionary model for supporting the emergence of authenticity described in this study provides a means of overcoming some of the challenges associated with simulation and participation models for establishing authentic learning experiences.     

The Virtual Solar System Project: Developing Conceptual Understanding of Astronomical Concepts Through Building Three-Dimensional Computational Models

The Virtual Solar System (VSS) course described in this paper is one of the first attempts to integrate three-dimensional (3D) computer modeling as a central component of an introductory undergraduate astronomy course. Specifically, this study assessed the changes in undergraduate university students' understanding of astronomy concepts as a result of participating in an experimental introductory astronomy course in which the students constructed 3D models of different astronomical phenomena. In this study, we examined students' conceptual understanding concerning three foundational astronomical phenomena: the causes of lunar and solar eclipses, the causes of the Moon's phases, and the reasons for the Earth's seasons. Student interviews conducted prior to the course identified a range of student alternative conceptions previously identified in the literature regarding the dynamics and mechanics of the Solar System. A previously undocumented alternative conception to explain lunar eclipses is identified in this paper. The interviews were repeated at the end of the course in order to quantitatively and qualitatively assess any changes in student conceptual understanding. Generally, the results of this study revealed that 3D computer modeling can be a powerful tool in supporting student conceptualization of abstract scientific phenomena. Specifically, 3D computer modeling afforded students the ability to visualize abstract 3D concepts such as the line of nodes and transform them into conceptual tools, which in turn, supported the development of scientifically sophisticated conceptual understandings of many basic astronomical topics. However, there were instances where students' conceptual understanding was incomplete and frequently hybridized with their existing conceptions. These findings have significant bearing on when and in what domains 3D computer modeling can be used to support student conceptual understanding of astronomy concepts.     

Understanding kiosk navigation: Using log files to capture hypermedia searches

The purposes of these studies were to investigate: a) the role of different intentions for constraining kiosk searches; b) whether selected variables related to reading comprehension (e.g., prior content knowledge) were also related to document search; and c) the potential of log files (timed-stamped records of students' navigational choices in the kiosk) as a non-intrusive tool for seamlessly capturing navigational performance. In Study 1, 64 college students were recruited and randomly assigned to one of two conditions. Both groups used an identical computer kiosk. However, one condition used the kiosk to address a specific problem, while the other condition used the kiosk based on their own interests-no specific task was provided. A discriminant function analysis was able to improve prediction about the group membership by 79% (adjusted with Cohen's Kappa) over and above chance. In Study 2, 54 participants were randomly assigned a simple or complex task. Participants were pretested on prior topic knowledge and solutions were rated based on a composite of navigational scores. Although prior content knowledge and the interaction were not significant, the type of task assigned was related to the quality of solution. These results provide further reason to distinguish between document search and reading comprehension. Further, they suggest new tools for assessment (log files) that have implications for many computerized applications, including hypertext, hypermedia, and the World Wide Web.University of Connecticut at Storrs     

Our Designs and the Social Agendas They Carry

Although the work of learning scientists and instructional designers has brought about countless curricula, designs, and theoretical claims, the community has been less active in communicating the explicit and implicit critical social agendas that result (or could result) from their work. It is our belief that the community of learning scientists is well positioned to build transformative models of what could be, to develop learning and teaching interventions that have impact, and to advance theory that will prove valuable to others. This potential, we argue, would be significantly heightened if we as a community embrace the critical agendas that are central to so many discussions in anthropology, philosophy, or even curriculum development more generally. Instead of simply building an artifact to help individuals accomplish a particular task, or to meet a specific standard, the focus of critical design work is to develop sociotechnical structures that facilitate individuals in critiquing and improving themselves and the societies in which they function, and then we use our understanding of participation with these structures to advance theory. As an example of critical design work, we describe the Quest Atlantis project and the methodology used in its creation.

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it. (Karl Marx, 1845/1998)     

Evaluation of a collaborative multimedia conflict resolution curriculum

This article describes the development and evaluation of STARstreams, a pilot effort to utilize videos and online discussions in a conflict resolution curriculum that acknowledges the inherent socio-personal aspects of conflict. The STARstreams curricula includes a set of video-based scenarios depicting conflict situations and potential resolutions to those conflicts, a web-based conferencing system for cross-classroom discussion of the scenarios, and a handbook to guide teacher implementation of the curriculum. These materials were evaluated in a 2-week field trial with four geographically diverse 5th and 6th grade classrooms. The experimental STARstreams curriculum was well-received by participating students and teachers, engendered extensive participation in online discussions about the scenarios, and had a statistically significant effect on measures of social problem solving, self-efficacy toward conflict resolution, and perceived value and satisfaction with the materials. The overall program and its development are described; classroom experiences, online discussion, and quantitative outcome measures are presented; and implications for future efforts are discussed.