What was the motivation to create WISE?
WISE was created to provide high quality accessible science education material on the web. Although having content available doesn’t mean that people will learn, the WISE modules allow for re-mixing which can help teachers personalize them for their students and curriculum. Each WISE module is intended to facilitate making learning visible and engage students in collaboration.
In what ways does SKI promote knowledge integration through its technological and curriculum design? Describe a typical process for developing a WISE project.
By scaffolding the inquiry in meaningful case examples (e.g., tire recycling, genetic modification, cancer), students engage in the inquiry process by first developing a basic vocabulary, generating responses, and later reflecting upon their responses.
The typical process for developing a WISE project involves:
- Selecting an interesting curricular topic for students to explore
- Identifying the different skills and concepts that students would need to develop
- Sequencing the module content
- Populating assessment and activity throughout the module (e.g., prediction, practice, reflection)
- Adding resources to the module to support the activities (e.g., websites, simulations)
- Hosting the project online and encouraging re-mix and re-use
WISE projects facilitate curiousity through the case example selected while the assessment tasks help students build the background knowledge and skills to predict, explain, and then explore and iterate.
How does this design process compare with the Jasper Adventures?
In contrast, the Jasper adventures are primarily video based and are scenarios where problem solving is situated. In WISE, the scenario is what students work on.
I imagine that the Jasper adventures were much more expensive to create and design given the medium. In contrast to the WISE design process, the Jasper adventures likely undergo:
- Selecting a real-world scenario
- Creating multi layered and complex problems
- Scripting the scenario with the problem in mind; provide enough context and then transition students into collaborative or individual problem solving
Overall, I find the design process for both WISE and Jasper. While WISE examines a scenario/case, Jasper has students working on math problems within the scenario. The anchor for Jasper helps students recognize that math has real life applications. The scaffolding in WISE helps make science more accessible and facilitates inquiry in meaningful contexts.
How could you use a WISE project in your school or another learning environment?
Since WISE reminds me of the e-modules I create using Articulate Rise (except with native authoring for more constructivist activities), I imagine it as a useful classroom tool for:
- Guided homework and preparatory tasks – especially in cases where you want to do a flipped classroom or begin an actual inquiry in the classroom, this could be done to target some of the lower order thinking skills from Bloom’s taxonomy before students progress to higher order thinking skills. The challenge with the home use is that it doesn’t make use of peer-to-peer and collaboration. As a preparatory task, it would also be great to use as a larger class discussion.
In my own context, I would like to see high quality modules created as pre-lecture tasks. Especially in a post-secondary institution, the re-mix and re-use element of WISE modules makes it great for others to use. Open access and connecting to other units is also helpful.
- Meaningful work to do when the teacher is away – instead of giving students busy work when a supply teacher is present, a WISE module’s feedback can provide guidance to the learner. As well, it can be designed to include resources and interactivity to support learners.
What about WISE would you customize?
I think the native authoring of WISE offers users a lot to work with. I especially like that there’s interactivity that can help students carry a digital notebook with them and then re-visit it later. These reflective tasks are important because it helps students confront their naive conceptions and correct them with new evidence to create a new theory.
Given that WISE is based in the USA, most of the content is based on American curriculum. There is a lot of overlap in the concepts, but as was pointed out in our discussions, it would be good to have Canadian examples. From working at an ed tech start up to create video lessons, I know how difficult it is to create a quality web based experience. Since WISE aims to create a good starting point for re-mixing, it is still difficult to engage in TPACK since our students may interact with the module differently than we expect. When I was working at the start up, I would return to literature to identify common misconceptions and try to address those through assessments, examples, and non-examples. I suppose in a classroom perspective, a high quality WISE module would target the majority of students based on literature and other data. Through assessment, conversation, and making learning visible, teacher-student and student-student interactions could shift to address what is relevant to their specific class. In this sense, WISE provides an accessible platform for learning while the assessments/activities and collaboration encourage lifelong learning.
The challenge I’m currently seeing with the WISE authoring system is that it is complex. Although a lot can be done, there is a steep learning curve.