pedagogy – ETEC 533 E-folio

Weeks Eight and Nine: TELE 2 – My World and Chemland

The final two examples in the design of technology-enhanced learning experiences (TELE) section of this course are My World and Chemland.

My World is an education based geographic information system (GIS) developed by Northwestern University in Illinois. It is based on the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) Arc/Info GIS. The initiative has been described by Edelson (2001) and Stylinski and Smith (2006). My World uses scientific visualization incorporated into inquiry-based learning to enable students to develop understandings of complex phenomena in earth and environmental sciences. It accomplishes this by constructing interactive maps and uses analysis tools to make database and geospatial inquiries.

My World incorporates learning-for use (LfU) framework (Edelson, 2001); below are the four principles:

Learning occurs through construction and modification of knowledge structures
Knowledge construction is goal oriented both conscious and unconscious
The circumstances around how the knowledge is constructed determines how it is accessed in the future
Knowledge must be constructed in a useful manor before it can be applied

My World, like the Web-based Inquiry Science Environment (WISE), is based on constructivist pedagogy where students can with the aid of the GIS, combine different provided data sets and their own data sets to discover spatial relationships. My World is geo-spatial so any science or social science concepts can be applied with this system including bringing in data sets from outside of which is provided. There are several disadvantages to MY World as it is complex and not an easy system to learn. It is probably the ultimate constructivist environment as students create new data and information by simply combining and displaying two or more datasets. The danger with this type of open environment is it is difficult to validate if what the students have created is useful or just meaningless artifacts. Without this validation and interpretation from the teacher, then it could create new unchecked misconceptions.

Chemland is a suite of chemistry simulations available for free. Khan (2007, 2010) describes how Chemland can be used with the Technology – Generate-Evaluate-Modify (T-GEM) method of scientific inquiry. There are three components of the T-GEM model:

Generate – students are provided with information and asked to generate relationships
Evaluate – students are given new information that is in conflict with their initial information – thus they must evaluate the relationships they previously generated
Modify – students must modify the relationships they generated based on the new information

This method encourages students to generate their own rules or relationships given initial information. Then they are then challenged with new, often conflicting information and asked to evaluate the rules and then modify them based on the new information. T-GEM provides the framework to support and scaffold students to make connections among various abstractions. In addition, it fosters learner conceptual understandings and the development of inquiry skills.

Chemland and T-GEM is chemistry based and allows students to explore the wonders of chemistry through many different information sources. The environment is designed to create conflict that encourages students to re-evaluate and problem-solve new solutions. Chemland consists of s series of simulations with fixed inputs and ranges so the constructivist approach is somewhat controlled.

References

Edelson, D.C. (2001). Learning-for-use: A framework for the design of technology-supported inquiry activities. Journal of Research in Science Teaching,38(3), 355-385. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1098-2736%28200103%2938:3<355::AID-TEA1010>3.0.CO;2-M/abstract

Khan, S. (2007). Model-based inquiries in chemistry. Science Education, 91(6), 877-905.

Khan, S. (2010). New pedagogies for teaching with computer simulations. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 20(3), 215-232.

Stylinski, C. & Smith, D. (2006, August). Connecting classrooms to real-world GIS-based watershed investigations. Paper presented at the ESRI Education User Conference, San Diego, CA. Retrieved Nov 15, 2012, from: http://proceedings.esri.com/library/userconf/educ06/abstracts/a2275.html

Learn more about My World and Chemland on the Design Page.

Weeks Four and Five: Framing Issues Paper

Part of framing an issue is reflecting and writing about ones own definitions of technology and pedagogical design. This is included early in the Design section posted on January 26, 2013.

I struggled several times trying to determine a topic for the framing issues paper. Initially with a proposal submitted to the instructor related the effect of technology on student engagement; this topic was too broad and was non-domain specific. After searching the UBC library with the following search terms: student engagement, technology, clicker technology, STEM education and end engagement I gradually narrowed the search. This was the second struggle as narrowing the search took longer than I had expected.

Eventually after skimming some articles I noticed something was being said that I suspected and in addition, it was quantified about first year STEM courses at college and university. These courses are quite often killer courses meant to weed out students in the first year. Non-STEM first year courses are not as brutal. The second component which tied into my interest area of technology and student engagement surfaced as a solution to softening the killer courses. I selected the simple clicker as a technology used by some Instructors and Professors to encourage engagement. Several papers indicated this had a positive effect on student engagement in first and second year students.

So with this arose my framing issues paper which is an annotated bibliography of four papers titled “STEM in post-secondary education can be engaging or boring; it is the instructor’s choice”. The conclusion to the paper is as follows.

Clickers are a classroom technology that when integrated with an engagement pedagogy, can be used to effectively break up the intensive lecture and provide feedback and engagement for the students. If used with a modified instruction method, then students can discuss difficult concepts and then respond back to the instructor through clickers to validate that they are developing deep conceptual understandings of simple or complex STEM problems. This paper has allowed me to validate my thoughts on clicker usage in the classroom in general. In my postings on clickers I suggested that their usage encouraged engagement by both the students and the instructors, gave the instructor a reading on how well he is doing at getting the message across, let students know how well they are doing individually and amongst their peers and provided a safe anonymous environment for students to try answering questions asked in class.

The research provided evidence to a perspective that I had suspected; killer gatekeeper first year STEM courses do not need to be set up this way. It is the instructor’s choice to keep them boring and inactive for the students. With new technologies such as clickers, instructors can make them engaging and interesting for the students and can create an environment for them to stay in STEM majors longer. This will allow them to make better informed decisions about STEM careers based on their interest level after first or second courses rather than bailing out early because of a bad and boring experience with an unengaged instructor, perhaps in their first semester.

I am quite interested in knowing why research has shown an increase in student engagement and interest in subject matter using more engaging pedagogies does not translate into statistically higher grades for students. Perhaps the assessment tools are not appropriate to capture the benefits of deeper approaches to learning that engagement nurtures. If the assessment tools are designed to test the lower level memorization thinking skills expected from traditional lecture formats then they may not capture the deeper learning associated with higher order, integrative and reflective learning and thus not show the true benefits of the engaging classroom.

The paper is posted in the Framing section – February 2, 2103.