Designing Educational Video Games to Be Objects-to-Think-With

In this article we propose that educational game design should work to create games as objects-to-think-with—games that engage players in the exploration of and experimentation with personally interesting questions around domain-relevant representations. We argue that this design focuses on developing tools and interactions that the player can use for inquiry and productive thinking. As a step toward achieving this goal, we propose the constructible authentic representations design principle and illustrate this principle using a prototype game, Particles!, for exploring the particulate nature of matter. Observations of game play and interviews with 9 children ages 11–14 suggest that core game representations and mechanics provided players with a space for engaging in useful scientific practices and knowledge resources for reasoning about the important role molecular structure plays in material properties beyond the game. We explore how this design proposal extends and complements existing constructivist game design frameworks. Furthermore, we suggest that the framework of games as objects-to-think-with should push the educational game design community to consider the complexity and nuance of cognition and to embrace and champion the learner in game design.     

What is Normal Anyway? Therapy for Epistemological Anxiety

This paper presents two case studies of learners attempting to make sense of the concept of normal distribution — in particular, why physical phenomena such as height fall into normal distributions. The notion of epistemological anxiety is advanced as being the source of the difficulties learners have in making sense of normal distributions. The framework of Connected Mathematics is used to analyze the learners' coming to understanding of normal distributions and as a source of therapeutic intervention for the epistemological anxiety. As both a symbolizing medium and an aid to analysis, one learner is provided with an object-based parallel modeling language (OBPML) with which the learner can formulate computational hypotheses about the local probability rules that lead to the emergence of a global distribution. Through the investigation, supported by the OBPML, the learner makes connections between the micro-rules of probability and the resultant (macro-) statistical distributions. Conclusions are then drawn about the features of a Connected Mathematics learning environment that enable confrontation with epistemological anxiety and the features of modeling languages that enable learners to conduct a successful probability investigation.This revised version was published online in September 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Modeling and Measuring High School Students’ Computational Thinking Practices in Science

Journal of Science Education and Technology - Despite STEM education communities recognizing the importance of integrating computational thinking (CT) into high school curricula, computation still...     

Strategies for environmental education within contemporary science education

Most of secondary school science curricula discriminate neatly between two types of activity: knowing the world, on the one hand, and reflecting upon this knowledge, on the other. Moreover, this knowledge is usually based on an empiricist epistemology. The conceptual structure of a part of a typical secondary school physics curriculum is analysed from this point of view. This epistemological rationale causes difficulties in the understanding of scientific concepts which are predictable from the standpoint of the assimilation theory of Ausubel (1978). The difficulties are a consequence of the arbitrariness and lack of intelligibility of the concepts and problems presented to the student. Finally, a different epistemological rationale is proposed: that provided by genetic epistemology.     

From assumption of knowledge to knowledgeable considerations: a class activity on ‘ionizing radiation and its biological effects’

A class activity developed as a framework for the introduction of the topic of ‘Ionizing radiation and its biological effects’ is described. A central component of the activity is a game in which students compare their own estimations of exposure levels in different situations, prior to and after the study. It was found that both students and their teachers had similar and mostly wrong, preconceptions. This activity is aimed at encouraging students to adopt an informed approach whenever dealing with issues of scientific content.     

Response Inhibition in Preschoolers at Familial Risk for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: A Behavioral and Electrophysiological Stop‐Signal Study

Children participating in the Ben‐Gurion Infant Development Study were assessed with a dynamic‐tracking version of the stop‐signal task at the age of 5 years. The sample consisted of 60 males. Stop‐signal reaction time (SSRT) was correlated with concurrent ratings of the child's attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms. Paternal symptoms measured in the child's early infancy predicted the child's performance in the stop‐signal task: Paternal inattentiveness predicted SSRT, whereas hyperactivity predicted error proportion. Maternal symptoms were not correlated with the performance of the child in the task. A subsample of children, who were tested while electrophysiological brain activity was measured, showed that having higher ADHD symptomatology, especially hyperactivity, correlated with less activity in the brain areas that are usually recruited by children for successful inhibition.     

Student Self-Assessment in HOCS Science Examinations: Is There a Problem?

A specially-designed self-assessment questionnaire (SAQHOCS), containing higher-order cognitive skills (HOCS)-type questions, was administered to 71 biology majors, enrolled in a four-year college program. The gap between students' self-assessment marking, and that of their HOCS-biased teachers (the authors), is accounted for by the prevailing LOCS-orientation and the testing culture—a total separation between testing and learning—in contemporary science teaching. The majority of the students in the study evaluated themselves as capable of self-assessment, and felt reasonably confident in doing so. They were quite reserved as far as the applicability of the self-assessment method to nonalgorithmic (correct/incorrect) questions is concerned. The results of this study suggest that the potential for student self-assessment within college science teaching and learning exists. However, still a great purposed effort in HOCS-oriented teaching and learning is required in order for the student self-assessment practice to become a routine integral component of HOCS science examinations.